Author Stephen Davis Book Signing

Author Stephen Davis will be presenting and signing copies of his books, A Long and Bloody Task, as well as, All the Fighting They Want.

The event is from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday, July 14^th at the Chickamauga Chattanooga National Military Park (3370 Lafayette Road, Fort Oglethorpe, GA). For more information: https://www.nps.gov/chch/index.htm.

About A Long and Bloody Task: Spring of 1864 brought a whole new war to the Western Theater, with new commanders and what would become a new style of warfare. Federal armies, perched in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after their stunning victories there the previous fall, poised on the edge of Georgia for the first time in the war. Atlanta sat in the far distance. Major General William T. Sherman, newly elevated to command the Union’s western armies, eyed it covetously—the South’s last great untouched prize. “Get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources,” his superior, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, ordered. And so began one of the last great campaigns in the West: Sherman’s long and bloody task.

The acknowledged expert on all things related to the battle of Atlanta, historian Steve Davis has lived in the area the majority of his life, and in A Long and Bloody Task, he tells the tale of the Atlanta campaign as only a local can. He brings his Southern sensibility to the Emerging Civil War Series, known for its engaging storytelling and accessible approach to history.

“The Emerging Civil War Series is happily offering more volumes on the Civil War’s Western Theater,” said Davis. “I’m privileged to write for it about the Atlanta Campaign of 1864. The very format of the Series—concise narratives with rich pictorial complement—has allowed me to make what I consider to be the essential points about Sherman and Johnston in a brisk and (I hope) engaging manner. In this way I think I’ve added something of value to the literature of the Atlanta Campaign.”

About All the Fighting They Want: John Bell Hood brought a hang-dog look and a hard-fighting spirit to the Army of Tennessee. Once one of the ablest division commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia, he found himself, by the spring of 1864, in the war's Western Theater. Recently recovered from grievous wounds sustained at Chickamauga, he suddenly found himself thrust into command of the Confederacy's ill-starred army even as Federals pounded on the door of the Deep South's greatest untouched city, Atlanta.

His predecessor, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, had failed to stop the advance of armies under Federal commander William T. Sherman, who had pushed and maneuvered his way from Chattanooga, Tennessee, right to Atlanta's very doorstep. Johnston had been able to do little to stop him.

The crisis could not have been more acute.

Hood, an aggressive risk-taker, threw his men into the fray with unprecedented vigor. Sherman welcomed it.

"We'll give them all the fighting they want," Sherman said.

He proved a man of his word.

In All the Fighting They Want, Georgia native Steve Davis, the world's foremost authority on the Atlanta campaign, tells the tale of the last great struggle for the city. His Southern sensibility and his knowledge of the battle, accumulated over a lifetime of living on the ground, make this an indispensible addition to the acclaimed Emerging Civil War Series.