Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War

Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2006. PResumed first edition/first printing. Hardcover. Very good in good dust jacket. DJ has some sticker residue at back.. 448 p. Illustrations. Recounts twenty of the war's most significant battles in lively, detailed prose. Illustrated with exhaustive battlefield maps and fascinating historical images. Published in conjunction with the 140th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. From Wikipedia: "Edwin Cole Bearss...born June 26, 1923), a United States Marine Corps veteran of World War II, is a military historian and author known for his work on the American Civil War and World War II eras and is a popular tour guide of historic battlefields. He served as Chief Historian of the National Park Service from 1981 to 1994....Bearss used the G.I. Bill to finance his education at Georgetown University, from which he obtained a B.S. degree in Foreign Service studies in 1949. He worked for three years in the United States Navy Hydrographic Office in Maryland and used his spare time to visit numerous Civil War battlefields in the East. He received his M.A. in history from Indiana University in 1955, writing his thesis on Confederate General Patrick Cleburne. As part of his research, he visited the Western Theater battlefields on which Cleburne fought, telling friends, "You can't describe a battlefield unless you walk it." In February 2005, Lincoln College awarded Bearss an honorary doctorate, and in May 2010, Gettysburg College awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters. On the battlefield of Shiloh in 1954, he made a career decision inspired by the park historian he met, Charles E. (Pete) Shedd: interpretation of battles in the field was far more interesting than the academic study of history in an office. Although attracted to a National Park Service career, he first joined the Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, but soon took work as an historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was at Vicksburg that he met his wife, Margie Riddle Bearss (1925 2006), also a Civil War historian; they were married on July 30, 1958. They first lived in the Leila Luckett House in Vicksburg formerly occupied by then-Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's soldiers in 1863, and eventually had three children: Sara Beth, Edwin Cole, Jr., and Mary Virginia (Jenny). At Vicksburg, Bearss did the research leading him and two friends to the long-lost Union gunboat U.S.S. Cairo. He also located two forgotten forts at Grand Gulf, Mississippi. He was promoted in 1958 to Southeast regional historian, working out of Vicksburg, but he spent the majority of his time on the road, visiting virtually every battlefield in the country. As popular interest in the Civil War increased with the centennial celebrations starting in 1961, Bearss was recognized as more knowledgeable on the battlefields than virtually anyone else and he was enlisted to develop a variety of new parks, including Pea Ridge and Wilson's Creek. During his long NPS career, he also led efforts in Fort Smith; Stones River, Fort Donelson; battlefields around Richmond, Bighorn Canyon; the Eisenhower Farm at Gettysburg; the gold miners' route over Chilkoot Pass; President Lyndon B. Johnson's Ranch; Fort Moultrie; Fort Point; William Howard Taft House; Fort Hancock at the Boston Navy Yard; and the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. In 1966 Bearss was transferred to Washington, D.C. On November 1, 1981, he was named Chief Historian of the National Park Service, a position he held until 1994. From 1994 to 1995 he served as special assistant to the director. After his retirement in 1995, he received the title Chief Historian Emeritus, which he holds to this day. In 1972 Bearss became a founding member of the Board of Advisors of Sea Research Society and participated in the creation of its College of Marine Arts. He was active in the Society's efforts to raise the wreck of the Civil War submarine Hunley, which had been found off Charleston, South Carolina, in 1970....Bearss started interpretative touring as part of his official duties in Vicksburg, leading eight one-hour tours a day. Although he was no.