Unforgettables: Some Winners, Losers, Strong Women, and Eccentric Men of the Civil War Era

Personalities. Characters. History. John C. Waugh, the author of the popular and award-winning The Class of 1846, presents forty of the most memorable and impactful individuals he has come across during his three decades of researching and writing about the American Civil War - or as he calls them, his “Unforgettables” in the aptly titled, Unforgettables: Winners, Losers, Strong Women, and Eccentric Men of the Civil War Era. Waugh’s unique pen and spritely style bring to life a mix of the famous and the infamous, the little-known and the unremembered. He reintroduces us to Abraham Lincoln the writer, Jefferson Davis the losing president, and their fascinating and influential wives Mary and Varina. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster (“three for the ages”) are juxtaposed with Presidents Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan - four chief executives who failed to avert the coming war. Military personalities include U. S. Grant and Robert E. Lee with a nod toward their mentor, the nearly forgotten General Winfield Scott. The author cast a wide net to include “the seekers of equality,” African Americans Sojourner Truth and Lincoln’s friend Frederick Douglass, a half dozen women like Maria Mayo, Kate Chase, and Anna Dickinson who helped shape our understanding of cultural issues, and influential media mavens Horace Greeley and Adam Gurowski. Poet and political activist Muriel Rukeyser once wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” She was right. Had she elaborated, she might have added that these stories are driven by the passions of their characters and are what history is all about. “My hope,” explains the author in his Preface, “is that these sketches and word portraits rekindle that passion and hook a few non-believers on the undeniable drama that is history.”

About the Author :
Civil War historian John C. Waugh was for seventeen years a staff correspondent and bureau chief for the international newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor. He followed that with three years on the senior staff of former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller in Washington. Later for six years he was the press secretary for New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman in that U. S. senator's first term. An historian at heart, Waugh has spent the last three decades, with occasional Lapses, writing thirteen published books on the American Civil War era, including the best-selling The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox-Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan and Their Brothers . He has also authored various articles for numerous national periodicals. Waugh attended Tucson, Arizona, public schools and graduated from the University of Arizona in 1951 with a major in journalism and a minor in history. He is the father of two children, the grandfather of four, and the great- grandfather of one. He and his wife, Kathleen D. Lively, live in Pantego, Texas.

Review :
"Elegantly written and based on sound scholarship...Engaging, profusely illustrated, well-researched, cogently crafted, and based on sound scholarship, Waugh's book is informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Although the book is geared toward general audiences, seasoned historians should likewise find value in this book as a quick refresher about some of the Civil War era's most significant and intriguing characters."-- "Emerging Civil War" "Culled from the author's three decades of researching and writing about the Civil War, this book provides vibrant accounts of many prominent people of the era. Readers interested in an introduction to a variety of Civil War personalities and American history will enjoy."-- "Library Journal"