At the very end of the War Between the States, seventeen commanders delivered farewell addresses to the men they had led through four years of hell during which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed. The seventeen include General Robert E. Lee, General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General William T. Sherman, Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Major General George Gordon Meade, Colonel John Singleton Mosby, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T. Trowbridge (U.S. Colored Troops), General Joseph E. Johnston, Major General Joseph Wheeler and Major General Robert F. Hoke.
Those eight Confederate and nine Union addresses are important documents in American history because they show clearly what each side was fighting for.
Historian Michael R. Bradley has given us exciting narrative history researched in minute detail on the seventeen commanders, their units, battles and last words to their men. If you love history, it does not get better than this.
--------- from the Prologue by Gene Kizer, Jr.
The Prologue alone is worth the cost of the book, as is the Introduction, in which Dr. Bradley conclusively punctures the Single Cause Myth. Confederate and Union commanders speak from their hearts after four years of bloody struggle. Bradley's mini-biographies, of each commander, add a huge amount of depth to the work. The Last Words is worthy of a historian of the first rank, which Dr. Bradley clearly is. It should be on the bookshelf of every serious student of the Civil War. I give it my highest recommendation without qualification or reservation.
--------- Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., author of The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals: The Definitive Guide to the 426 Leaders of the South's War Effort, and over 40 other books including Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Author Biography:
Michael R. Bradley is a native of the Tennessee-Alabama state line region near Fayetteville, TN. He earned a B.A. from Samford University, a Master of Divinity at New Orleans Seminary, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. For thirty-six years, Dr. Bradley taught United States History at Motlow College near Tullahoma, Tennessee. He has been pastor of two Presbyterian churches in Middle Tennessee and interim Pastor of two others. Dr. Bradley is the author of several books on the War Between the States in Tennessee and Nathan Bedford Forrest, but he has written on topics ranging from the Revolutionary War to death in the Great Smoky Mountains. His books include: They Rode with Forrest; Tullahoma: The 1863 Campaign for the Control of Middle Tennessee; With Blood and Fire: Life Behind Union Lines in Middle Tennessee, 1863-65; Nathan Bedford Forrest's Escort & Staff in War and Peace; It Happened in the Revolutionary War; It Happened in the Civil War: Remarkable Events That Shaped History; Myths and Mysteries of the Civil War; Forrest's Fighting Preacher, David Campbell Kelley of Tennessee; The Raiding Winter; Civil War Myths and Legends: The True Stories Behind History's Mysteries; Death in the Great Smoky Mountains, and others along with a lifetime of articles and talks. In 1994 he was awarded the Jefferson Davis Medal in Southern History. In 2006 he was elected commander of the Tennessee Division SCV and is a Life Member. He was appointed by Gov. Phil Bredesen to Tennessee's Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. Dr. Bradley is married with two adult children, two grandsons and one granddaughter. He lives with his wife, Martha, in Tullahoma. Gene Kizer, Jr. graduated magna cum laude from the College of Charleston (SC) in 2000 at middle age with History Departmental Honors, the Rebecca Motte American History Award, and the highest award for the History Department, the Outstanding Student Award.He is author of Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States, The Irrefutable Argument., 360 pages, 218 footnotes, 207 sources in the bibliography; The Elements of Academic Success, How to Graduate Magna Cum Laude from College (or how to just graduate, PERIOD!), 364 pages; and Charleston, SC Short Stories, Book One, an eBook on Amazon.He is compiler and wrote the Introduction to Charles W. Ramsdell, Dean of Southern Historians, Volume One: His Best Work, 462 pages.He also produced two DVD series, The History and Literature of the South; and World History 101 and 102, featuring distinguished military historian Dr. Clark G. Reynolds. There are 80 DVDs in World History 101 and 102, and they cover prehistory through 2001. He lives on James Island in Charleston where he is also broker-in-charge of Charleston Saltwater Realty.
