A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election To The Battle Of Bull Run [Audio Cassette]

Richard Wheeler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 1995

From President Lincoln's election to the Battle of Bull Run, here is a powerful and moving account of the coming of this tragic conflict in America's history, as told by the people who witnessed it.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Wheeler chronicles America's dramatic plummet into war during the spring and summer of 1861. As in the author's other "eyewitness" accounts of the Civil War, including On the Fields of Fury ( LJ 3/1/91), the rapidly unfolding events are described by contemporary observers on both sides of the conflict. It is their voices, gleaned from original sources and skillfully woven into a cohesive narrative, that make Wheeler's latest work such compelling reading. The illustrations, index, bibliography, and supplemental reading list make this work especially suitable for secondary school students and college undergraduates. Recommended for appropriate libraries, where needed.
- Lawrence E. Ellis, Newberry Coll. Lib., S.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The latest Civil War volume from a gifted popular historian who has never forgotten that historians, like novelists, are descendants of the fireside storyteller. Using the vast mass of eyewitness accounts with his usual deftness, Wheeler takes the reader from the secession of South Carolina through the firing on Fort Sumter, the wave of further secessions, the Union loss of the naval base at Norfolk, and the efforts of both sides to cobble together armies. He ends the book with the First Battle of Bull Run, in which those armies (more accurately, armed mobs) clashed and the Confederacy won a large but ultimately fruitless victory. Accessible and readable, drawing upon a host of resources that only the largest Civil War collection would include, this is a fine narrative of the first steps on the long road to Gettysburg. Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc. (August 31, 1995)
• ISBN-10: 0736631399
• ISBN-13: 978-0736631396
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Flat, February 25, 2011

By 

Michael E. Fitzgerald (Kingwood, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battles of Bull Run: An Eyewitness History (Hardcover)

Richard Wheeler has penned an interesting work on the events that led up to the Civil War, through and including the first Battle of Bull Run. But his reliance on eye witness accounts, quite an excellent tool for enabling the reader to delve into the time and place is, well, a little too much. Whole chapters are comprised of "eye witness" accounts linked by short, one sentence transitions. Certain of these accounts are quite excellent, enlightening in their detail and tied directly to the subject matter at hand. Others, however, lose the reader. They are relevant, yes, but are often, too often, tangential to the topic under discussion. As a result, the passion and the stress of the events that led to the unraveling of the United States of America, Wheeler's main message, becomes choppy and, at times, loses continuity.

That said, this is a worthwhile effort, one to be taken seriously. Wheeler's approach to the first Battle of Bull Run, the final chapters in this work, are the very best I have ever read. Most histories gloss over this confrontation in their rush to get to the more dramatic and lurid battles that followed. But since this event is the culmination of this book, Wheeler has left no stone unturned. While casualties as compared to subsequent actions were relatively light, Bull Run was a huge event, involving 36,000 troops over a nine mile front. Moreover, Wheeler's supporting maps are quite excellent and materially aid in the understanding of this multi day event. As a result, I came away from his analysis with the best understanding of this first major action of the war that I have read anywhere. This part of the book is wonderfully done and to be honest, it makes you want to read the next work in this series.

Just be aware that the earlier portion of the work wanders and can at times be a bit bumpy.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Viewing Civil War History in 3D, January 12, 2010

By 

Robert Schlenker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battles of Bull Run: An Eyewitness History (Hardcover)

Being a devotee of "eyewitness" accounts I have long been drawn to Civil War memoirs including letters home and diaries. Most give a snapshot of a time or place or a number of interrelated snapshots leaving it to the reader to connect the accounts to others in an attempt to synthesize a picture of the whole or enough of the whole to be meaningful. Luckily for me and many others I hope, the author, Richard Wheeler took an interest in Civil War history and began writing about it in a way that provides what I think of as a 3 dimensional view. Wheeler takes the accounts of people who were there and joins them in a way that provides a chronicle of a time segment vital to our understanding of the Civil War. In "A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battle of Bull Run: An Eyewitness History" the title spells out the time segment to which this book is devoted and emphasizes the eyewitness approach. What sets this history apart from others, is the care with which Wheeler sews together the personal accounts into a seamless fabric which then seems to pull you in, making you feel that you are there. Much better than Walter Cronkite's "You Are There" sketches and more like stepping through the looking glass into another reality Wheeler has produced a "page turner" that makes a living present out of what we know to be history long dead. In the pages of "A Rising Thunder" we discover how people really behaved and what they felt as our disunited republic swept toward the war that would finally create the United States of America and set the stage for this country to beome the great nation of the 20th century and beyond.