Description:
At the very end of the Civil War, seventeen commanders delivered farewell addresses to their men. Those addresses are IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS because they show clearly what each side was fighting for.
Brief description: Michael R. Bradley is a native of the Tennessee-Alabama state line region near Fayetteville, TN. He earned a B.A. from Samford University, a Master of Divinity at New Orleans Seminary, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. For thirty-six years, Dr. Bradley taught United States History at Motlow College near Tullahoma, Tennessee. He has been pastor of two Presbyterian churches in Middle Tennessee and interim Pastor of two others. Dr. Bradley is the author of several books on the War Between the States in Tennessee and Nathan Bedford Forrest, but he has written on topics ranging from the Revolutionary War to death in the Great Smoky Mountains. His books include: They Rode with Forrest; Tullahoma: The 1863 Campaign for the Control of Middle Tennessee; With Blood and Fire: Life Behind Union Lines in Middle Tennessee, 1863-65; Nathan Bedford Forrest's Escort & Staff in War and Peace; It Happened in the Revolutionary War; It Happened in the Civil War: Remarkable Events That Shaped History; Myths and Mysteries of the Civil War; Forrest's Fighting Preacher, David Campbell Kelley of Tennessee; The Raiding Winter; Civil War Myths and Legends: The True Stories Behind History's Mysteries; Death in the Great Smoky Mountains, and others along with a lifetime of articles and talks. In 1994 he was awarded the Jefferson Davis Medal in Southern History. In 2006 he was elected commander of the Tennessee Division SCV and is a Life Member. He was appointed by Gov. Phil Bredesen to Tennessee's Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. Dr. Bradley is married with two adult children, two grandsons and one granddaughter. He lives with his wife, Martha, in Tullahoma.
Review Quotes:
Michael Bradley's The Last Words is a compelling accomplishment in the endless task of saving our history from academic "cultural cleansing."
Those "Last Words" are the catalyst for a deeply reasoned and truly eloquent attack by Mr. Bradley on the practice of "Presentism" by the politicized crusaders of radical academia and their bedfellows in the "mainstream" media.
Any sane American knows at this point that we are "up against it." As always, there are no better weapons in this struggle than the clear, hard facts of history as it actually happened. This precise and wise book from Dr. Bradley and Charleston Athenaeum Press may be one of our generation's most timely calls to action.
----- Ben Jones is an actor, author, playwright, comedian, musician, and former United States Congressman from Georgia. He played the beloved "Cooter" in The Dukes of Hazzard.
Michael Bradley's book, The Last Words, is an important contribution to understanding the truth concerning the North's War to Prevent Confederate Independence. As Gene Kizer states in the Prologue, it is important to understand the viewpoints of those who were living at the time and who experienced the events. Anything else is "Presentism," or history twisted to conform to the politics of today. This collection of Farewell Addresses from men both North and South, will shed much light on the Truth, and dispel the Myth of American History concerning that tragic time.
----- H. V. Traywick, Jr. graduated from VMI in 1967. He is author of Starlight on the Rails: A Vietnam Veteran's Long Road Home, Empire of the Owls, Virginia Iliad, and several other books. He received a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam in the United States Army.
The United States' (previously!) most-revered academic institutions are leading a cultural insurrection whose goal is to completely overthrow the longstanding narrative of American history. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, for example, and even the U.S. Military Academy at West Point are working diligently to promote that goal. That sad fact is exactly why Michael Bradley's latest book, The Last Words (including Gene Kizer, Jr.'s brilliant Prologue, Setting the Stage), is so important. Bradley's seventeen "farewell" addresses by Confederate and Union commanders to their troops - their words reflecting their soldiers' service, sacrifice, motives and beliefs, spoken at the end of America's bloodiest war - represent a vitally important window into the past, a great start in exposing the lies and false assumptions promoted by today's academically-brainwashed legions of "identity politics." The only counter-weapon to the militant Left's culture-destroying attack on our history is to research, write and publish books like Michael Bradley's The Last Words.
----- Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, Colonel, U.S. Army, ret., Senior Historian/Senior Editor, Historynet.com