The Galvanized Yankees

Book excerpt: The little-known true Civil War story of the Confederate soldiers who served in the Union Army by a #1 New York Times–bestselling author. Historian Dee Brown uncovers an exciting episode in American history: During the Civil War, a group of Confederate soldiers opted to assist the Union Army rather than endure the grim conditions of POW camps. Regiments containing former Confederates were not trusted to go into battle against their former comrades, and instead were sent to the West as “outpost guardians,” where they performed frontier duties, including escorting supply trains, rebuilding telegraph lines, and quelling uprisings from regional American Indian tribes, which were sweeping across the Plains. This is an account of an extraordinary, though often overlooked, group of men who served in unexpected ways at a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. From the bestselling author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Galvanized Yankees is “an accurate, interesting, and sometimes thrilling account of an unusual group of men [and] a fresh and informative study of the Old West in transition from frontier to stable society” (The New York Times Book Review). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dee Brown including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.