Bøker av Elizabeth D. Leonard

Historian Elizabeth Leonard has combed archives, memoirs, and histories to unearth the stories of the hidden and forgotten women who risked their lives for the blue or the gray. These women spied for their cause, remained on the front lines as daughters of the regiments, and even dressed as men and enlisted under aliases to take up arms and fight as soldiers. Here are the stories of Belle Boyd, a proud Confederate loyalist and key player in Stonewall Jackson's struggle to hold the Shenandoah Valley; army woman Annie Etheridge, whose four long years of courageous work on the field earned her a Kearney Cross for bravery; Sarah Emma Edmonds, who enlisted as "Franklin Thompson," remained with her regiment as a much-respected soldier for two years, fighting at Fredricksburg and elsewhere; and many other courageous women.Leonard investigates why these women chose unconventional ways to help their cause. In doing so, she gives us a striking portrait of the lives women led in the nineteenth century and of their ability to break through the traditional barriers of Victorian womanhood.

Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Remembered most often for his uncompromising administration of the Federal occupation of New Orleans during the war, Butler reemerges in this lively narrative as a man whose journey took him from childhood destitution to wealth and profound influence in state and national halls of power. Prize-winning biographer Elizabeth D. Leonard chronicles Butler's successful career in the law defending the rights of the Lowell Mill girls and other workers, his achievements as one of Abraham Lincoln's premier civilian generals, and his role in developing wartime policy in support of slavery's fugitives as the nation advanced toward emancipation. Leonard also highlights Butler's personal and political evolution, revealing how his limited understanding of racism and the horrors of slavery transformed over time, leading him into a postwar role as one of the nation's foremost advocates for Black freedom and civil rights, and one of its notable opponents of white supremacy and neo-Confederate resurgence.Butler himself claimed he was "e;always with the underdog in the fight."e; Leonard's nuanced portrait will help readers assess such claims, peeling away generations of previous assumptions and characterizations to provide a definitive life of a consequential man.

Countless lives were transformed by the war that split the nation, and many stories are yet to be revealed about how the Civil War and the Reconstruction era affected Kentuckians. One such narrative is that of Sandy Holt, who, in the summer of 1864, joined tens of thousands of former slaves and enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. He put his life on the line to secure the Union's survival and the end of slavery. Hundreds of miles away in a federal office, Sandy Holt's former owner, Joseph Holt, worked to achieve the same goals. No one could have predicted before the Civil War that these two very different but interconnected Kentuckians would be crucial participants in the Union war effort. Joseph Holt's radical transformation and the contributions of black Kentuckians in the United States Colored Troops have long been underestimated.In Slaves, Slaveholders, and a Kentucky Community's Struggle toward Freedom, author Elizabeth D. Leonard examines a community of black and white Kentuckians whose lives were intertwined throughout the Civil War era. Bringing new insights into the life and legacy of Breckinridge County native Joseph Holt, Leonard exposes the origins of Holt's evolution from slave owner to member of Lincoln's War Department, where he became a powerful advocate for the abolition of slavery and the enlistment of former bondsmen. Digging deep into Holt's past, Leonard explores the lives of Holt's extended family members and also traces the experiences and efforts of Sandy Holt and other slaves-turned-soldiers from Breckinridge County and its periphery. Many ran from bondage to fight for freedom in the Union army and returned, hoping to claim the promises of Emancipation. The interwoven stories of Joseph and Sandy Holt, and their shared Kentucky community during and after the war, show how a small corner of this border state experienced one of the most defining conflicts in American history.

Lincoln's Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky