American Political History: Essays on the State of the Discipline

In 1995 more than 100 historians gathered at the University of Notre Dame for a conference convened to honour the American historian Vincent P. De Santis. This collection of essays from the conference aims to describe and define the state of political history at the end of the 20th century.

History

Marszalek, John F.

Americas

University of Notre Dame Press

Grover Cleveland: A Bibliography (Bibliographies of the Presidents of the United States)

Reference

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Greenwood

In the summer of 1862, President Lincoln called General Henry W. Halleck to Washington, D.C., to take command of all Union armies in the death struggle against the Confederacy. For the next two turbulent years, Halleck was Lincoln's chief war advisor, the man the President deferred to in all military matters. Yet, despite the fact that he was commanding general far longer than his successor, Ulysses S. Grant, he is remembered only as a failed man, ignored by posterity. 
In the first comprehensive biography of Halleck, the prize-winning historian John F. Marszalek recreates the life of a man of enormous achievement who bungled his most important mission. When Lincoln summoned him to the nation's capital, Halleck boasted outstanding qualifications as a military theorist, a legal scholar, a brave soldier, and a California entrepreneur. Yet in the thick of battle, he couldn't make essential decisions. Unable to produce victory for the Union forces, he saw his power become subsumed by Grant's emergent leadership, a loss that paved the way for Halleck's path to obscurity. 
Harnessing previously unused research, as well as the insights of modern medicine and psychology, Marszalek unearths the seeds of Halleck's fatal wartime indecisiveness in personality traits and health problems. In this brilliant dissection of a rich and disappointed life, we gain new understanding of how the key decisions of the Civil War were taken, as well as insight into the making of effective military leadership.

Commander of All Lincoln's Armies : A Life of General Henry W. Halleck

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press

General William Tecumseh Sherman has come down to us as the implacable destroyer of the Civil War, notorious for his burning of Atlanta and his brutal march to the sea. A probing biography that explains Sherman's style of warfare and the threads of self-possession and insecurity that made up his character. Photos.

Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order

Leaders & Notable People

Vintage

Court-martial;: A black man in America

Scribner

The Eaton Affair was the tabloid story of its time -- and perhaps of all time. Peggy O'Neale Eaton, the brash and unconventional wife of President Andrew Jackson's secretary of war, was branded a "loose woman" and snubbed by Washington society. The president's defense of her honor fueled intense speculation and gossip, and the scandal began.Before it was over, the entire Cabinet resigned, duels were threatened, assassinations were attempted, and John Calhoun's hopes for the White House were dashed, and Andrew Jackson's first term was nearly a failure. Washington's hostesses were the only bloody victors.Award-winning author John Marszalek systematically tracks the escalation of events in a story that teems with conspiracy, slander, and paranoia. Reaching deep into the social context of the Jacksonian Age, he shows how even the most powerful politicians ceded to an honor code that could not be broken.Both a riveting read and a fascinating window into our present-day politics of scandal, The Petticoat Affair is a deft exploration of the mores of another era brought to life by the timeless forces of ambition, conspiracy, and political intrigue.

The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House

G.K.Hall & Co.

In The Petticoat Affair, prize-winning historian John F. Marszalek offers the first in--depth investigation of the earliest -- and perhaps greatest -- political sex scandal in American history. During Andrew Jackson's first term in office, Margaret Eaton, the wife of Secretary of State John Henry Eaton, was branded a "loose woman" for her unconventional public life. The brash, outgoing, and beautiful daughter of a Washington innkeeper, Margaret had socialized with her father's guests and married Eaton very soon after the death of her first husband, shocking genteel society. Jackson saw attacks on Eaton as part of a conspiracy to topple his administration, and his strong defense of her character dominated the first two years of his term, and led to the resignation of his entire cabinet.

LSU Press

Sherman: A Soldier'S Passion For Order

Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order is the premier biography of William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War commander known for his “destructive war” policy against Confederates and as a consummate soldier. This updated edition of John F. Marszalek’s award-winning book presents the general as a complicated man who, fearing anarchy, searched for the order that he hoped would make his life a success. 
Sherman was profoundly influenced by the death of his father and his subsequent relationship with the powerful Whig politician Thomas Ewing and his family. Although the Ewings treated Sherman as one of their own, the young Sherman was determined to make it on his own. He graduated from West Point and moved on to service at military posts throughout the South. This volume traces Sherman’s involvement in the Mexican War in the late 1840s, his years battling prospectors and deserting soldiers in gold-rush California, and his 1850 marriage to his foster sister, Ellen. Later he moved to Louisiana, and, after the state seceded, Sherman returned to the North to fight for the Union.
Sherman covers the general’s early Civil War assignments in Kentucky and Missouri and his battles against former Southern friends there, the battle at Shiloh, and his rise to become second only to Grant among the Union leadership. Sherman’s famed use of destructive war, controversial then and now, is examined in detail. The destruction of property, he believed, would convince the Confederates that surrender was their best option, and Sherman’s successful strategy became the stuff of legend.
This definitive biography, which includes forty-six illustrations, effectively refutes misconceptions surrounding the controversial Union general and presents Sherman the man, not the myth.

Southern Illinois University Press

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860, he came into office with practically no experience in military strategy and tactics. Consequently, at the start of the Civil War, he depended on leading military men to teach him how to manage warfare. As the war continued and Lincoln matured as a military leader, however, he no longer relied on the advice of others and became the major military mind of the war. In this brief overview of Lincoln’s military actions and relationships during the war, John F. Marszalek traces the sixteenth president’s evolution from a nonmilitary politician into the commander in chief who won the Civil War, demonstrating why Lincoln remains America’s greatest military president.
As tensions erupted into conflict in 1861, Lincoln turned to his generals, including Winfield Scott, George B. McClellan, and Henry W. Halleck, for guidance in running the war. These men were products of the traditional philosophy of war, which taught that armies alone wage war and the way to win was to maneuver masses of forces against fractions of the enemy at the key point in the strategic area. As Marszalek shows, Lincoln listened at first, and made mistakes along the way, but he increasingly came to realize that these military men should no longer direct him. He developed a different philosophy of war, one that advocated attacks on all parts of the enemy line and war between not just armies but also societies. Warfare had changed, and now the generals had to learn from their commander in chief. It was only when Ulysses S. Grant became commanding general, Marszalek explains, that Lincoln had a leader who agreed with his approach to war. Implementation of this new philosophy, he shows, won the war for the Union forces.
Tying the necessity of emancipation to preservation of the Union, Marszalek considers the many presidential matters Lincoln had to face in order to manage the war effectively and demonstrates how Lincoln’s determination, humility, sense of humor, analytical ability, and knack for quickly learning important information proved instrumental in his military success. Based primarily on Lincoln’s own words, this succinct volume offers an easily-accessible window into a critical period in the life of Abraham Lincoln and the history of the nation.

Lincoln and the Military (Concise Lincoln Library)

Born a slave in 1850s South Carolina and elected to Congress in the 1890s, George W. Murray appeared to be the antithesis of the African American male in the Jim Crow South and served as a beacon for African Americans who saw their hopes crushed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Early in the twentieth century, however, tragically defeated by corrupt Reconstruction politics and white supremacist attitudes he could not escape, Murray was driven from office and from the state. Drawing on extensive research to reconstruct Murray’s life story, Marszalek defines an age and its people through the compelling battle of one man and shows how and why the nation’s efforts to reconstruct the South into a biracial democracy failed.            Murray’s career, which spanned a quarter of a century, included two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and leadership of South Carolina’s Republican party. He was an investor as well as a landed property owner who sold tracts to poor blacks in order for them to qualify to vote. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, with his party in shambles, he found himself on trial for alleged forgery in a land deal with two of his black land purchasers. Murray was found guilty, and the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang, he escaped to Chicago where he spent the rest of his life in obscurity. 

A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow: South Carolina's George Washington Murray (New Perspectives on the History of the South)

University Press of Florida

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Marszalek, John F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Marszalek, John F.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Marszalek, John F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

American Political History: Essays on the State of the Discipline

Grover Cleveland: A Bibliography (Bibliographies of the Presidents of the United States)

Commander of All Lincoln's Armies : A Life of General Henry W. Halleck

Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order

Court-martial;: A black man in America

The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House

The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House

Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order

Lincoln and the Military (Concise Lincoln Library)

A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow: South Carolina's George Washington Murray (New Perspectives on the History of the South)