This image is the cover for the book Blue & Gray Almanac

Blue & Gray Almanac

“Help[s] readers to examine this period in history with a more cultural perspective than other books have . . . clear, concise, and crisp . . . fascinating” (San Francisco Book Review).

• During the final days of the war, some Richmond citizens would throw “Starvation Parties,” soirees at which elegantly attired guests gathered amid the finest silver and crystal tableware, though there were usually no refreshments except water.

• Union Rear-Admiral Goldsborough was nicknamed “Old Guts,” not so much for his combativeness as for his heft—weighing about three hundred pounds, he was described as “a huge mass of inert matter.”

• 30.6 percent of the 425 Confederate generals, but only 21.6 percent of the 583 Union generals, had been lawyers before the war.

• In 1861, J.P. Morgan made a huge profit by buying five thousand condemned US Army carbines and selling them back to another arsenal—taking the army to court when they tried to refuse to pay for the faulty weapons.

• Major General Loring was reputed to have so rich a vocabulary that one of the men remarked he could “curse a cannon up hill without horses.”

• Many militia units had a favorite drink—the Charleston Light Dragoons’ punch took around a week to make, while the Chatham Artillery required a pound of green tea leaves be steeped overnight.

• There were five living former presidents when the Civil War began, and seven veterans of the war, plus one draft dodger, went on to serve as president.

These stories and many more can be found in this treasury of anecdotes, essays, trivia, and much more—including numerous illustrations—that bring this historical period to vivid life.

Albert Nofi

Albert Nofi is a military historian, defense analyst and wargame designer. He has published over 30 books on a wide variety of topics. In parallel with three decades as a teacher and later administrator in New York public schools, he was associated editor of the journal Strategy and Tactics and produced a number of wargames. In 1999 Nofi became a research analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses, writing Recent Trends in Thinking About Warfare and several other analytical papers. He has lectured at a number of colleges, universities and other institutions including the University of Paris-Sorbonne, the Smithsonian, and the Air War College. For many years an Associate Fellow of the U.S. Civil War Center, he was a Director of the New York Military Affairs Symposium since its formation, and is a member of the Society for Military History and a number of other military and historical societies. From many years, Nofi contributed a regular column to North & South. In 1998, he became a contributing editor to StrategyPage. He splits his time between New York and Texas.

Casemate Publishers