Sometimes a war's greatest heroes are its survivors, those who manage to forge new lives despite the tragedy they have experienced. For the sixteen unsung heroes profiled in Beyond Their Years, surviving also meant surrendering their childhood. These children found themselves on the edge of the fray - both in combat and in the throes of daily life - helping, or simply enduring, as best their interrupted youths allowed. Their behind-the-scenes stories illustrate what it was really like for children during the Civil War. Meet Ransom Powell, a thirteen-year-old drummer boy who survived grueling Confederate prison camps; writer and patriot Maggie Campbell, only eight years old when the war ended; Ulysses S. Grant's son Jesse, who rode proudly alongside Abraham Lincoln's son Tad and Ella Sheppard, daughter of a slave mother and a freed father, who lived through the backlash of slave rebellions. Each of these young survivors' lives represent an amazing contribution to the war effort and to postbellum life. Learn the inspiring stories of these American children who displayed courage, devotion, and wisdom beyond their years. (6 x 9, 176 pages, b&w photos)

It's rare for a modern writer to make a genuinely new discovery about the Civil War, but former intelligence officer Edwin C. Fishel pulls it off in The Secret War for the Union. Having stumbled upon a large collection of previously unknown documents at the National Archives, he describes in this book the undercover operations of the Army of the Potomac. Federal intelligence, by Fishel's account, was crucially important to winning the war, and was of much higher quality than previously assumed. Among other accomplishments, it appears to have played a vital role in the Union victory at Gettysburg. This surprise--and a few others--await serious readers.