A01=Harwood P. Hinton
A01=Jerry Thompson
Author_Harwood P. Hinton
Author_Jerry Thompson
Category=JW
Category=NHK
Category=NHW
Category=NHWR
Category=NHWR3
Cherokee Removal
Civil War
Department of the East
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
John Ellis Wool
Mexican-American War
Native Americans on the West Coast
New York City draft riots of 1863
nineteenth-century
Pacific coast
Peninsula Campaign
United States Army
War of 1812
Product details
- ISBN 9780806197470
- Weight: 907g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 20 Oct 2026
- Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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For a half century, John Ellis Wool (1784–1869) was one of America’s most illustrious figures—most notably as an officer in the United States Army during the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the Civil War. At the onset of the Civil War, when he assumed command of the Department of the East, Wool had been a brigadier general for twenty years and, at age seventy-seven, was the oldest general on either side of the conflict. Courage Above All Things marks the first full biography of Wool, who aside from his unparalleled military service, figured prominently in many critical moments in nineteenth-century U.S. history.
At the time of his death in 2016, Harwood Hinton, a scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge of western history, had devoted fifty years to this monumental work, which has been completed and edited by the distinguished historian Jerry Thompson. This deeply researched and deftly written volume incorporates the latest scholarship to offer a clear and detailed account of John Ellis Wool’s extraordinary life—his character, his life experiences, and his career, in wartime and during uneasy periods of relative peace. Hinton and Thompson provide a thorough account of all chapters in Wool’s life, including three major wars, the Cherokee Removal, and battles with Native Americans on the West Coast.
From his distinguished participation in the War of 1812 to his controversial service on the Pacific coast during the 1850s, and from his mixed success during the Peninsula Campaign to his overseeing of efforts to quell the New York City draft riots of 1863, John Ellis Wool emerges here as a crucial character in the story of nineteenth-century America—complex, contradictory, larger than life—finally fully realized for the first time.
At the time of his death in 2016, Harwood Hinton, a scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge of western history, had devoted fifty years to this monumental work, which has been completed and edited by the distinguished historian Jerry Thompson. This deeply researched and deftly written volume incorporates the latest scholarship to offer a clear and detailed account of John Ellis Wool’s extraordinary life—his character, his life experiences, and his career, in wartime and during uneasy periods of relative peace. Hinton and Thompson provide a thorough account of all chapters in Wool’s life, including three major wars, the Cherokee Removal, and battles with Native Americans on the West Coast.
From his distinguished participation in the War of 1812 to his controversial service on the Pacific coast during the 1850s, and from his mixed success during the Peninsula Campaign to his overseeing of efforts to quell the New York City draft riots of 1863, John Ellis Wool emerges here as a crucial character in the story of nineteenth-century America—complex, contradictory, larger than life—finally fully realized for the first time.
Harwood P. Hinton was Professor of History at the University of Arizona for thirty years. He wrote about the legendary cattle baron John Simpson Chisum and edited the journals Arizona and the West and Western Historical Quarterly, as well as John Spricklin Spratt’s Thurber, Texas: The Life and Death of a Company Coal Town. Jerry Thompson is Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M International University and the author of numerous books on the history of Texas and the American Southwest, including Cortina: Defending the Mexican Name in Texas.
