About the Book
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.
About the Author :
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.
Review :
Michael Bradley's The Last Words is a compelling accomplishment in the endless task of saving our history from academic "cultural cleansing."
Those "Last Words" are the catalyst for a deeply reasoned and truly eloquent attack by Mr. Bradley on the practice of "Presentism" by the politicized crusaders of radical academia and their bedfellows in the "mainstream" media.
Any sane American knows at this point that we are "up against it." As always, there are no better weapons in this struggle than the clear, hard facts of history as it actually happened. This precise and wise book from Dr. Bradley and Charleston Athenaeum Press may be one of our generation's most timely calls to action.
----- Ben Jones is an actor, author, playwright, comedian, musician, and former United States Congressman from Georgia. He played the beloved "Cooter" in The Dukes of Hazzard.
Michael Bradley's book, The Last Words, is an important contribution to understanding the truth concerning the North's War to Prevent Confederate Independence. As Gene Kizer states in the Prologue, it is important to understand the viewpoints of those who were living at the time and who experienced the events. Anything else is "Presentism," or history twisted to conform to the politics of today. This collection of Farewell Addresses from men both North and South, will shed much light on the Truth, and dispel the Myth of American History concerning that tragic time.
----- H. V. Traywick, Jr. graduated from VMI in 1967. He is author of Starlight on the Rails: A Vietnam Veteran's Long Road Home, Empire of the Owls, Virginia Iliad, and several other books. He received a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam in the United States Army.
The United States' (previously!) most-revered academic institutions are leading a cultural insurrection whose goal is to completely overthrow the longstanding narrative of American history. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, for example, and even the U.S. Military Academy at West Point are working diligently to promote that goal. That sad fact is exactly why Michael Bradley's latest book, The Last Words (including Gene Kizer, Jr.'s brilliant Prologue, Setting the Stage), is so important. Bradley's seventeen "farewell" addresses by Confederate and Union commanders to their troops - their words reflecting their soldiers' service, sacrifice, motives and beliefs, spoken at the end of America's bloodiest war - represent a vitally important window into the past, a great start in exposing the lies and false assumptions promoted by today's academically-brainwashed legions of "identity politics." The only counter-weapon to the militant Left's culture-destroying attack on our history is to research, write and publish books like Michael Bradley's The Last Words.
----- Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, Colonel, U.S. Army, ret., Senior Historian/Senior Editor, Historynet.com
