BiblioVault - Books about 1863

1863

Lincoln's Pivotal Year

Edited by Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard

Southern Illinois University Press, 2013

Only hours into the new year of 1863, Abraham Lincoln performed perhaps his most famous action as president by signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Rather than remaining the highlight of the coming months, however, this monumental act marked only the beginning of the most pivotal year of Lincoln’s presidency and the most revolutionary twelve months of the entire Civil War. In recognition of the sesquicentennial of this tumultuous time, prominent Civil War scholars explore the events and personalities that dominated 1863 in this enlightening volume, providing a unique historical perspective on a critical period in American history.

Several defining moments of Lincoln’s presidency took place in 1863, including the most titanic battle ever to shake the American continent, which soon inspired the most famous presidential speech in American history. The ten essays in this book explore the year’s important events and developments, including the response to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation; the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and other less-well-known confrontations; the New York City draft riots; several constitutional issues involving the war powers of President Lincoln; and the Gettysburg Address and its continued impact on American thought. Other topics include the adaptation of photography for war coverage; the critical use of images; the military role of the navy; and Lincoln’s family life during this fiery trial.

With an informative introduction by noted Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer and a chronology that places the high-profile events of 1863 in context with cultural and domestic policy advances of the day, this remarkable compendium opens a window into a year that proved decisive not only for the Civil War and Lincoln’s presidency but also for the entire course of American history.

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Old Times on the Upper Mississippi

Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863

George Byron Merrick

University of Minnesota Press, 2001

The Rules of Association Football, 1863

The Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2006

In 1863 a group of Victorian Oxbridge graduates, frustrated by the confusing riot of competing rules that characterized the game of British football, began meeting at the Freemason’s Tavern in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, to codify the rules of the game. They quickly drew up the standard set of rules, creating the First Rule Book of the Football Association, reprinted here in its entirety alongside illustrations and drawings of the game.

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Seven Months in the Rebel States During the North American War, 1863

Captain Justus Scheibert, with a new introduction by Robert K. Krick

University of Alabama Press, 2009

Captain Scheibert’s book was available only in German until W. S. Hoole edited the present version.

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This Soldier Life

The Diaries of Romine H. Ostrander, 1863 and 1865, in Colorado Territory

Paul A. Malkoski

University Press of Colorado, 2006

Romine Ostrander, born in 1837 in Roseville, Illinois, had made his way to Colorado as a private in the First Colorado Cavalry by the time he was twenty-five. On February 26, 1863, he bought a small, leather-bound diary; over the next three years he filled this volume and two more with his thoughts, travels, and frustrations. The delicate, well-worn diaries accompanied the private in his saddlebags over miles of dusty Colorado trails, but eventually they disappeared. The 1863 and 1865 journals resurfaced in 1922 in a warehouse in Fresno. Annotated for historic interest but otherwise unedited, they offer a fascinating and infectious read - the young author creates a vivid portrait of frontier Colorado and comments on the events of his day: the Sand Creek Massacre, the Civil War, Lee's surrender, and his own encounters with Arapahos, Cheyennes, Comanches, Apaches, and Cherokees.

Jan. 24, 1865:
"I have had pretty spirited arguments with these third reg't ducks sometimes about the barbarity of indiscriminately murdering defenseless women and children of the Indians at sand creek. Some of them deny that any thing of the kind was done except in the general action when there was no telling the difference; and some acknowledge that there were women and children killed after the general action was over; but argue that it was right because Indians have done the same."

Oct. 17, 1863:
"I know that I have written a great many foolish - yes silly things in this book, and - well, what of it? What if I have? Who's business is it? Who's going to read them? I am!"

Published by the Colorado Historical Society

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