Hardtack Books

all things civil war.

Specializing in republishing classic Civil War books

Winter 2024 Edition

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Current Edition

Winter 2024 Issue

“Welcome to these Madmen About to Die”

In a stirring account of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Lt. Colonel David Watson Rowe, 126th Pennsylvania, describes the sheer terror experienced by a nine-month regiment of volunteers during their first battle test.

By D. Watson Rowe, 126th Pennsylvania

Christmas, 1862

War correspondents reports on the Army of the Potomac’s first Christmas in the field.

How Lincoln Outfoxed a Plot to Kill Him in Baltimore

Ward Hill Lamon was assigned to personally protect President-Elect Lincoln during the perilous period leading up to the inauguration. In a revealing account of the behind-the-scenes efforts to ensure Lincoln's safe passage to the capital, Lamon describes how an eclectic group of individuals successfully transported Lincoln through Baltimore without being detected.

By Ward Hill Lamon (from Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847 - 1865, 1911)

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Campaigns of a Non-Combatant: The Memoir of a Civil War Correspondent by George Alfred “GATH” Townsend, edited by Jeffrey R. Biggs

George Alfred Townsend was a special war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press and New York Herald during the Civil War. He followed McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and Pope’s Army of Virginia in the spring and summer of 1862, filing dozens of dispatches to his editors. Finally, after suffering from the effects of ‘swamp fever,’ he took a two-year break in Europe, where he lectured about his experiences. Townsend returned to the war front in 1865 and - after taking the pen name of “GATH” - was the first correspondent to describe the war’s climax at Five Forks. He released his memoir in 1866, detailing his personal experiences and recollections of the Civil War and those dramatic days.

This Hardtack Books reissue of Campaigns of a Non-Combatant is not a facsimile of the original work. Instead, it reimagines Townsend’s work in a modern font with dozens of illustrations and editorial footnotes.

Reviews of the Hardtack Books revised edition

“…published in 2024 through Hardtack Books, this new version is highly readable and informative. The editor has skillfully interwoven most of Townsend’s original verbiage with slight revisions to clarify the text (replacing obsolete or outdated words, for example) and make it appealing to modern readers who may be unfamiliar with young Townsend’s writings…the use of carefully selected photographs (not present in the 1886 version) further enhances this volume.”

- Cannonball, York County Record, by Civil War author Scott Mingus

“In this new edition, editor Jeffrey Biggs revises Townsend's 1866 memoir (excising the non-Civil War chapters), re-formats the text in a more attractive modern font, and reorganizes the original chapters into three parts…newly added period illustrations and photographs are peppered throughout, and the editor also indexes the material..”

- Booknotes: Civil War Book and Authors, Andrew J. Wagenhoffer

Praise for George A. Townsend (“GATH”):

“Townsend is the Sheridan of correspondents - as rapid, as dashing, as lawless and yet as successful, as the great cavalry commander.”

- Cleveland Daily Leader, 1866

“Townsend was the Ernie Pyle of his day, more interested in the human side of the news than in strategy ... his pen more concerned with little people than generals.”

- The Miami Herald, 1950

“Townsend had the quality, rare among partisans, of perspective. He was able to sense the sometime pathetic, sometimes uproarious humor of a desparate but essentially artificial hostility.”

- Baltimore Evening Sun, 1950

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The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Hardtack Books Illustrated Edition, edited by Jeffrey R. Biggs

This classic novel penned by Stephen Crane was published thirty years after the Civil War and was one of the first unsentimental works of fiction on the great American conflict. A psychological tale of the horrors of war, the novel is a timeless classic and still one of American fiction’s most acclaimed works. Initially serialized in newspapers in an abridged format, the text contained here is the final version published by Appleton in 1895.

In the Hardtack Books Illustrated Edition, each chapter is introduced with ambrotypes of ordinary Union soldiers inspired by Crane’s eternal tale of fear, redemption, and sacrifice in earning one’s own “red badge of courage.”

Praise for Red Badge of Courage

“…one of the finest books of our literature, and I include it entirely because it is all as much of a piece as a great poem is.” - Ernest Hemingway