Audiobooks Narrated by Jim Walsh

First Bull Run: The History of the Civil War’s First Major Battle

After Fort Sumter, the Lincoln Administration pushed for a quick invasion of Virginia, with the intent of defeating Confederate forces and marching toward the Confederate capitol of Richmond. Lincoln pressed General Irvin McDowell to push forward. Despite the fact that McDowell knew his troops were inexperienced and unready, pressure from Washington politicians forced him to launch a premature offensive against Confederate forces in Northern Virginia. McDowell’s strategy during the First Battle of Bull Run was grand, and in many ways it was the forerunner of a tactic Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet executed brilliantly on nearly the same field during the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. McDowell’s plan called for parts of his army to pin down General P.G.T. Beauregard’s Confederate soldiers in front while marching another wing of his army around the flank and into the enemy’s rear, rolling up the line. McDowell assumed the Confederates would be forced to abandon Manassas Junction and fall back to the next defensible line, the Rappahannock River. In July 1861, however, this proved far too difficult for his inexperienced troops to carry out effectively. As the first major land battle of the Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run made history in several ways. The two sides fought near the railroad junction at Manassas on July 21, 1861, just 25 miles away from Washington, which was close enough for many civilians from the nation’s capital to come and watch what they expected to be a rout of Confederate forces, and for awhile it appeared as though that might be the case. McDowell’s strategy ultimately fell apart though, mostly thanks to the use of the railroad. Confederate reinforcements under General Joseph E. Johnston, including a brigade led by Thomas Jonathan Jackson, arrived by train in the middle of the day, a first in the history of American warfare.

Jonathan Gianos-Steinberg (Author), Jim Walsh (Narrator)

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Niels Bohr and J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Lives and Careers of the Physicists Who Pioneered Atomic E

The Danes have incorporated a system that prizes a balance between work and play, the concept of “hygge,” solid investments made towards the treatment of mental illness, and a stellar welfare model. That has helped ensure that an endless stream of intellectuals, inventors, creative legends, and pioneers have hailed from Denmark over many centuries, from classical scholar Ada Adler to fabled 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe. One of the most famous, and important, is Niels Bohr, a world-famous physicist and one of the patriarchs of quantum theory. Given the vibrant, peaceful haven that is Denmark today, it’s somewhat ironic that Bohr played an instrumental role in the development of the atomic bomb. Even so, the truth and depth of the matter, much like the self-professed pacifist himself, is far more complex. The Manhattan Project would ultimately yield the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” bombs that released more than 100 Terajoules of energy at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as it turned out, the Axis were not far behind with their own nuclear weapons program. When the Nazis’ quest for a nuclear weapon began in earnest in 1939, no one really had a handle on how important nuclear weapons would prove to war and geopolitics. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, along with the Cold War-era tests and their accompanying mushroom clouds, would demonstrate the true power and terror of nuclear weapons, but in the late 1930s these bombs were only vaguely being thought through, particularly after the successful first experiment to split the atom by a German scientist. The nuclear age itself was in its infancy, barely 35 years old, but within a few short years the advent of nuclear war loomed over the world and the prospect of the enemy winning the nuclear race kept Allied leaders awake at night.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Walsh (Narrator)

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Sherman Makes Georgia Howl: The Atlanta Campaign and Sherman’s March to the Sea

Both Grant and Sherman shared the same theory of war: anything that might help the enemy's war effort should be considered a military target. After the Atlanta campaign, Grant explained to Sherman that the Confederates must be “demoralized and left without hope,” and he instructed Sherman, “Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of your command. Such as cannot be consumed, destroy. Leave the valley so barren that crows flying over it...will have to carry their provender with them.” This strategy sought the total economic collapse of the South, as well as completely disabling the South’s capability of fielding armies. In addition to the wholesale plundering of Southern resources, including taking them from civilians, the Union reversed its policy of swapping prisoners, realizing it had a far bigger reserve of manpower than the South. The Atlanta Campaign was a perfect example of this, as both sides lost about the same number of casualties. By September 1864, however, Sherman still had about 80,000 men, while Hood’s army was reduced to about 30,000. Following the design of Grant's innovative and successful Vicksburg Campaign, Sherman's armies eliminated their need for traditional supply lines by living off the land.  Ultimately, Sherman’s armies cut a path of abject destruction 60 miles wide and 300 hundred miles long from Atlanta to Savannah, which some likened to a Biblical blight. And as Sherman had intended, he did indeed made Georgia “howl.”  Due in large part to the March to the Sea, Sherman remains controversial across much of the United States today. The South considered him akin to a terrorist and adamantly insisted that he was violating the norms of warfare by targeting civilians. In many ways, Sherman is still the scourge of the South nearly 160 years after he vowed to make Georgia howl.  

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Walsh (Narrator)

Audiobook