Myths of the Civil War: The Fact, Fiction, and Science behind the Civil War’s Most-Told Stories

Myths of the Civil War: The Fact, Fiction, and Science behind the Civil War’s Most-Told Stories
ISBN-10
0811769828
ISBN-13
9780811769822
Category
History
Pages
264
Language
English
Published
2021-11-01
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield
Author
Scott Hippensteel

Description

In the spirit of Robert Adair’s cult classic The Physics of Baseball, here is a book that tackles the long-cherished myths of Civil War history—and ultimately shatters them, based on physics and mathematics. At what range was a Civil War sniper lethal? Did bullets ever “rain like hail”? Could one ever step across a battlefield by stepping only on bodies and never hard ground? How effective were Civil War muskets and rifles? How accurate are photographs and paintings? In this genre-bending work of history, Scott Hippensteel puts the tropes of Civil War history under the microscope and says, “Wait a minute!” Combining science and history, Hippensteel reexamines much that we hold dear about the Civil War and convincingly argues that memoirs and histories have gotten it wrong. This is a work of history and science for our era of “fake news”—and for well beyond. Readers will never look at the Civil War the same way again.

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