Books about Zouaves from Amazon.com

In celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s two hundredth birthday comes this breathtakingly illustrated picture book about the president and his two youngest sons. Tad and Willie Lincoln were mischievous pranksters who treated the White House as their personal playground. They tormented nearly everyone they encountered—except their doting father. Even when they demanded a full presidential pardon for their soldier doll, he was happy to oblige. For him, the boys were a welcome distraction from the looming Civil War. Based on true events, Mr. Lincoln’s Boys reveals a playful side of one of history’s greatest presidents..
Price: $6.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Perhaps the most famous - and certainly the most exotic - uniforms of the Civil War belonged to the Zouaves, troops of French derivation whose vibrant attire was accented by fezzes and baggy trousers. These soldiers cut a flashy figure, and Troiani depicts them in all their colourful glory. This volume also covers the uniforms of engineers, surgeons, marines, and generals..
Price: $4.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Among the mass of units formed in the early months of the American Civil War were several of the colourful Zouave units. Inspired by the French colonial units raised in North Africa with their distinctive uniforms and reputation as hard fighters, units with names as colourful as their uniforms began to appear. In this volume Robin Smith details the uniforms and battles of these flamboyant units. Bill Younghusband is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most popular illustrators of 18th and 19th century military subjects, and has already contributed to a number of Osprey titles..
Price: $69.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A Duryee Zouave
By Thomas P. Southwick

This book relates the story of Thomas "Pony" Southwick’s experiences in one of the most famous Civil War regiments—the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry, Duryee’s Zouaves Southwick subtitles his book "Journal and reminiscences of camp life and the personal experiences on the march and in the field, of an ordinary, common soldier of the Civil War." Yet, his story is far from ordinary. Southwick’s writing style gives an atmosphere that allows the reader to feel as if they are speaking with the old veteran himself. There are many comical and light hearted incidents in the book as well as the gripping battle accounts. Southwick gives a fantastic account of his and the Zouaves’ role at the first battle of the war—Big Bethel. Fort Federal Hill in Baltimore saw many Zouave antics before the unit embarked to participate in the Peninsula Campaign where the unit proves to be one of the most reliable and best fighting outfits in the Army of the Potomac. The Zouaves are involved in the siege of Yorktown but shortly thereafter take up their rifles and participate in the battle of Hanover Court House. The regiment proves its fighting capabilities at Gaines’ Mill and is decimated at Second Bull Run. The battle of Fredericksburg made a big impression on Southwick and he covers that engagement in great detail. Southwick survives the "Mud March" and Chancellorsville to be mustered out with the unit in May 1863. The book was originally published in 1930, but few copies are available today. This reprint contains all the original material plus a new introduction by Brian C. Pohanka and a foreword by Southwick’s great grandson. Fifty-nine biographies on soldiers and officers in the 5th New York mentioned by Southwick are also added. The reprint has 156-pages, including an index, and 25 photographs. The book has a soft cover, perfect bound, with Keith Rocco’s painting of the 5th New York at Gaines’ Mill in full color on the cover. Soft cover Price $12.95..
Price: $12.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Soft cover, 250 pages, index, more than 50 photos, maps and illustrations and 16 maps. Using richly descriptive letters passed down through generations of the Brandegee family, the author had presented the story of one young man, set on adventure and possessed with an earnest desire to sever his beloved country during its most wrenching conflict. Charlie s Letters follow young Charles Brandegee from his enlistment with the 5th New York Infantry (Duryee Zouaves) and later, service in the 146th New York Infantry, through his entire army experience including his capture at the Wilderness and subsequent imprisonment at Andersonville and Florence. Charlie s story is one of patriotism and hope, cynicism and despair, valuable for its depiction of the common soldier s experience. Excerpt From the Foreword by Brian C. Pohanka: For students of the American Civil War be they researcher, buff or historian the discovery of an extensive set of wartime letters is invariably a cause for celebrating. Sitting down with a huge packet of correspondence, previously unknown to anyone outside the soldier s immediate family or his descendants, evokes an excitement not unlike that of a small child contemplation the beribboned gifts beneath a Christmas tree. I know those were my sentiments when, through a fortuitous chain of events, I found myself reading the Civil War letters of Charles Brandegee. Here was a detailed chronicle of one young man s experience as he endured the tedium of camp life, the irksome imposition of military authority, the fevered delirium of a life-threatening illness, the ordeal of captivity, and the fiery crucible of battle. His words were replete with that depth of humanity that draws us, still, inexorably to that great and tragic time in our nation s history. There was naivete and pride, love of family and of country, apprehension and homesickness in short the literate, honest and very personal record of one private soldier serving with the Army of the Potomac. The letters were all the more intriguing since Brandegee had served in the ranks of two of the war s most colorful outfits: the 5th and the 146th New York Volunteer Infantry. Both were Zouave units, garbed in the flamboyant regalia of the French Colonial troops whose deeds of daring had caught the imagination of the American public on the very eve of sectional conflict. In 1860 the charismatic Illinois militiaman Elmer Ellsworth led his superbly drilled United States Zouave Cadets of Chicago on a much-publicized tour that fueled a veritable Zouave craze. At the outbreak of war dozens of volunteer organizations adopted the tasseled fez and baggy pantaloons of their French prototypes. Far from disappearing with the grim realization that the struggle would be a long and bloody one, Zouave regiments continued to serve with honor and distinction through the war s final campaigns. As fate would have it, when Charles Brandegee chose to enlist in January 1862, he joined what was by many accounts the Union s preeminent Zouave unit. The 5th New York had been organized by Colonel Abram Duryee, a veteran of 30 years service in the New York State Militia who for twelve years had commanded Manhattan s elite 7th Regiment. Duryee saw to it that he Zouaves were officered by militia veterans and graduates of the United States Military Academy, ready and willing to enforce strict Regular Army standards of discipline. While Duryee had been promoted to general and left the regiment prior to Brandegee s arrival, his successor in command, Colonel Governor Kemble Warren, was even more rigid, authoritarian and professional, as befitted his West Point education. The teenaged son of a prominent Connecticut physician, like so many volunteers, Charlie Brandegee went to war with a mix of patriotic idealism and . . . ..
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