Listen free for 30 days
-
Thunder at the Gates
- The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Americas
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £27.49
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War
- By: David Fisher
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the birth of the Republican Party to the Confederacy's first convention, the Underground Railroad to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War reveals the amazing and often little-known stories behind the battle lines of America's bloodiest war and debunks the myths that surround its greatest figures.
-
The Thin Light of Freedom
- The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America
- By: Edward L. Ayers
- Narrated by: James Edward Thomas
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the crux of America's history stand two astounding events: the immediate and complete destruction of the most powerful system of slavery in the modern world, followed by a political reconstruction in which new constitutions established the fundamental rights of citizens for formerly enslaved people. Few people living in 1860 would have dared imagine either event, and yet, in retrospect, both seem to have been inevitable. In a beautifully crafted narrative, Edward L. Ayers restores the drama of the unexpected to the history of the Civil War.
-
Civil War Stories
- A 150th Anniversary Collection
- By: The Washington Post
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stories from - and about - a nation divided. At The Washington Post, the Civil War has held an enduring fascination for both readers and writers. Raging from 1861-1865, the Battle Between the States has left a lasting imprint on the United States' collective psyche for 150 years. This 150th Anniversary Collection aggregates historical data with contemporary reflections, as journalists and historians put the bloody war into context.
-
Rise to Greatness
- Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year
- By: David Von Drehle
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As 1862 dawned, the American republic was at death’s door. The federal government appeared overwhelmed, the U.S. Treasury was broke, and the Union’s top general was gravely ill. The Confederacy - with its booming economy, expert military leadership, and commanding position on the battlefield - had a clear view to victory. To a remarkable extent, the survival of the country depended on the judgment, cunning, and resilience of the unschooled frontier lawyer who had recently been elected president. Twelve months later, the Civil War had become a cataclysm but the tide had turned.
-
The State of Jones
- The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy
- By: John Stauffer, Sally Jenkins
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War, the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man's war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War.
-
Valley Forge
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Valley Forge is the riveting true story of an underdog US toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents - and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation - the New York Times best-selling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide a breathtaking account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence.
-
Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War
- By: David Fisher
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the birth of the Republican Party to the Confederacy's first convention, the Underground Railroad to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War reveals the amazing and often little-known stories behind the battle lines of America's bloodiest war and debunks the myths that surround its greatest figures.
-
The Thin Light of Freedom
- The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America
- By: Edward L. Ayers
- Narrated by: James Edward Thomas
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the crux of America's history stand two astounding events: the immediate and complete destruction of the most powerful system of slavery in the modern world, followed by a political reconstruction in which new constitutions established the fundamental rights of citizens for formerly enslaved people. Few people living in 1860 would have dared imagine either event, and yet, in retrospect, both seem to have been inevitable. In a beautifully crafted narrative, Edward L. Ayers restores the drama of the unexpected to the history of the Civil War.
-
Civil War Stories
- A 150th Anniversary Collection
- By: The Washington Post
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stories from - and about - a nation divided. At The Washington Post, the Civil War has held an enduring fascination for both readers and writers. Raging from 1861-1865, the Battle Between the States has left a lasting imprint on the United States' collective psyche for 150 years. This 150th Anniversary Collection aggregates historical data with contemporary reflections, as journalists and historians put the bloody war into context.
-
Rise to Greatness
- Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year
- By: David Von Drehle
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As 1862 dawned, the American republic was at death’s door. The federal government appeared overwhelmed, the U.S. Treasury was broke, and the Union’s top general was gravely ill. The Confederacy - with its booming economy, expert military leadership, and commanding position on the battlefield - had a clear view to victory. To a remarkable extent, the survival of the country depended on the judgment, cunning, and resilience of the unschooled frontier lawyer who had recently been elected president. Twelve months later, the Civil War had become a cataclysm but the tide had turned.
-
The State of Jones
- The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy
- By: John Stauffer, Sally Jenkins
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War, the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place where poor men were forced to fight a rich man's war for slavery and cotton. In Jones County, Mississippi, a farmer named Newton Knight led his neighbors, white and black alike, in an insurrection against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War.
-
Valley Forge
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Valley Forge is the riveting true story of an underdog US toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents - and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation - the New York Times best-selling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide a breathtaking account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence.
-
Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle
- By: Kenneth W. Noe
- Narrated by: Tom Sleeker
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 8, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed near Perryville, Kentucky, in what would be the largest battle ever fought on Kentucky soil. The climax of a campaign that began two months before in Northern Mississippi, Perryville came to be recognized as the high water mark of the western Confederacy. Some said the hard-fought battle, forever remembered by participants for its sheer savagery and for their commanders' confusion, was the worst battle of the war, losing the last chance to bring the Commonwealth into the Confederacy.
-
-
A detailed account of a little known battle
- By Russell Tomlinson on 10-03-18
-
A Fierce Glory
- Antietam - The Desperate Battle That Saved Lincoln and Doomed Slavery
- By: Justin Martin
- Narrated by: James Edward Thomas
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On September 17, 1862, the US was on the brink, facing a permanent split into two separate nations. America's very future hung on the outcome of a single battle - and the result reverberates to this day. Given the deep divisions that still rive the nation, and given what unites the country, too, Antietam is more relevant now than ever.
-
Valiant Ambition
- George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental army under an unsure George Washington evacuated New York after a devastating defeat by the British army. Three weeks later, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeded in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have lost the war. As this book ends, four years later, Washington has vanquished his demons, and Arnold has fled to the enemy. America was forced at last to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within.
-
Bunker Hill
- A City, a Siege, a Revolution
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What lights the spark that ignites a revolution? Lost in the story of America’s path to independence is the tumultuous nature of that nation’s origins: the interplay of ideologies and personalities that provoked a group of merchants, farmers, artisans, and sailors to take up arms in pursuit of liberty.... A city of 15,000 inhabitants packed onto a land-connected island a little over one square mile, Boston in 1775 was also a city occupied by the British.
-
Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary
- By: Martha Brockenbrough
- Narrated by: Chris Ciulla
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He was born out of wedlock on a small island in the West Indies and orphaned as a teenager. From those inauspicious circumstances, he rose to a position of power and influence in colonial America. Discover this founding father's incredible true story: his brilliant scholarship and military career; his groundbreaking and enduring policy, which shapes American government today; his salacious and scandalous personal life; his heartrending end. Richly informed by Hamilton's own writing, Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary is an in-depth biography of an extraordinary man.
-
William Walker's Wars
- How One Man's Private American Army Tried to Conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras
- By: Scott Martelle
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the decade before the onset of the Civil War, groups of Americans engaged in a series of longshot - and illegal - forays into Mexico, Cuba, and other Central American countries in hopes of taking them over. These efforts became known as filibustering, and their goal was to seize territory to create new independent fiefdoms, which would ultimately be annexed by the still-growing United States. Most failed miserably. William Walker was the outlier. Soft-spoken with no military background, in 1856 he managed to install himself as president of Nicaragua.
-
City of Sedition
- The History of New York City During the Civil War
- By: John Strausbaugh
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No city was more of a help to Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort - or more of a hindrance. No city raised more men, money, and matériel for the war, and no city raised more hell against it. It was a city of patriots, war heroes, and abolitionists but simultaneously a city of antiwar protest, draft resistance, and sedition. Without his New York supporters, it's highly unlikely Lincoln would have made it to the White House.
-
General Ulysses S. Grant
- The Soldier and the Man
- By: Edward G. Longacre
- Narrated by: Jonathan Walker
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Despite his reputation for rash decisions, brutal tactics, and intemperate behavior, Ulysses S. Grant was the only Union general who could win the war for Lincoln. Grant's aggressive strategies, swift movements and uncompromising battlefield attacks were praised in the North, feared in the South, and reviled by many of his own associates and staff. General Grant is, perhaps, one of the most controversial, enigmatic, and misunderstood generals in our nation's history.
-
The Moro War
- How America Battled a Muslim Insurgency in the Philippine Jungle, 1902-1913
- By: James R. Arnold
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the global war on terror enters its second decade, the United States military is engaged with militant Islamic insurgents on multiple fronts. But the post-9/11 war against terrorists is not the first time the United States has battled such ferocious foes. The forgotten Moro War, lasting from 1902 to 1913 in the islands of the southern Philippines, was the first confrontation between American soldiers and their allies and a determined Muslim insurgency.
-
-
Very Good
- By JM Bradley on 07-01-21
-
A Time to Stand
- The Epic of the Alamo
- By: Walter Lord
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the morning of March 6, 1836, in an old abandoned mission called the Alamo, a small Texas garrison, fought to the death rather than yield to an overwhelming army of Mexicans. Through the years, the garrison's heroic stand has become so clothed in folklore and romance that the truth has nearly been lost. In A Time to Stand, Walter Lord rediscovers and recreates the whole fascinating story.
-
-
extensively researched account
- By NeilC on 16-10-21
-
The Real Custer
- From Boy General to Tragic Hero
- By: James S Robbins
- Narrated by: E. Roy Worley
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Real Custer takes a good hard look at the life and storied military career of George Armstrong Custer - from cutting his teeth at Bull Run in the Civil War, to his famous and untimely death at Little Bighorn in the Indian Wars. Author James Robbins demonstrates that Custer, having graduated last in his class at West Point, went on to prove himself again and again as an extremely skilled cavalry leader.
-
-
great story
- By Gary on 10-12-15
-
The Generals
- Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, and the Winning of World War II
- By: Winston Groom
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated historian Winston Groom tells the intertwined and uniquely American tales of George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall - from the World War I battle that shaped them to their greatest achievement: leading the allies to victory in World War II.
Summary
Soon after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, abolitionists began to call for the creation of black regiments. At first, the South and most of the North responded with outrage; southerners promised to execute any black soldiers captured in battle, while many northerners claimed that blacks lacked the necessary courage. Meanwhile, Massachusetts, long the center of abolitionist fervor, launched one of the greatest experiments in American history.
In Thunder at the Gates, Douglas R. Egerton chronicles the formation and battlefield triumphs of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry and the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry - regiments led by whites, but composed of black men born free or into slavery. He argues that the most important battles of all were won on the field of public opinion, for in fighting with distinction, the regiments realized the long-derided idea of full and equal citizenship for blacks.
A stirring evocation of this transformative episode, Thunder at the Gates offers a riveting new perspective on the Civil War and its legacy.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Thunder at the Gates
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Walter
- 22-08-20
Excellent military and social account
Excellent book about the 54th, 55th Mass Infantry and 5th Mass Cavalry, including the challenges faced by African American troops in a country that largely did not (and still didn’t for quite some time after) grant them equal rights. A good tonic for Southern Lost Cause mythologies and revisionism, especially considering the words and deeds of Confederates regarding African American troops during the Civil War, which continues to this day. A comprehensive, well-researched historical account, must read for military history buffs.