American Civil War Reference Books |
 The Civil War Day By Day: An Almanac, 1861-1865 The most exhaustively detailed and fascinating book on the American Civil War of its kind. Not only does it provide a day-by-day look at the major events of the war, but lists so many of the small skirmishes and actions as well. Accurate and enjoyable |
 Civil War Curiosities: Strange Stories, Oddities, Events, and Coincidences |
 The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864 Fought in a tangled forest fringing the south bank of the Rapidan River, the Battle of the Wilderness marked the initial engagement in the climactic months of the Civil War in Virginia, and the first encounter between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee |
 The State of Jones 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. |
 Civil War Medicine The staggering challenge of treating wounds and disease on both sides of the conflict. Written for general readers and scholars alike, this first-of-its kind encyclopedia will help all Civil War enthusiasts to better understand this amazing medical saga. Clearly organized, authoritative, and readable |
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 Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie: Reminiscences of a Confederate Cavalryman Mosgrove was born in Kentucky, in 1844, and enlisted in the Fourth Kentucky Cavalry Regiment on September 10, 1862. His eyewitness account illuminates the western theater of the Civil War in Kentucky, east Tennessee, and southwest Virginia |
 Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America The life of the first citizen committed to absolute racial equality. His friendships in defiance of the culture around him, He turned his twenty children into a dedicated militia. He collaborated with black leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, and Harriet Tubman to overthrow slavery. |
 The Camden Expedition of 1864 and the Opportunity Lost by the Confederacy to Change the Civil War The Confederacy had a great opportunity to turn the Civil War in its favor in 1864, but squandered this chance when it failed to finish off a Union army cornered in Louisiana because of concerns about another Union army coming south from Arkansas. The Confederates were so confused that they could not agree on a course of action to contend with both threats, thus the Union offensive advancing from Arkansas saved the one in Louisiana and became known to history as the Camden Expedition. |
 A Stranger And a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas An illiterate free black man, defied all generalizations about race as he served with distinction as a marksman in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, repeatedly crossed the color line, and became an Arkansas yeoman farmer, thriving and respected by white neighbors until he fell victim of new discriminatory legislation on the eve of the Civil War |
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 The Indians and the Civil War - Effects of the American Civil War on the Native American History Native American history has always been a study full of ambiguous points. Nowadays, when the outlived tribes still live on poor circumstances and try to keep step with our running world despairingly, their unique culture deserves more attention than used to. |
 Civil War in the Indian Territory When the war broke out, both sides wanted the Five Civilized Tribes, led by the Cherokees, and each got around half. The Confederacy sent Brigadier General Albert Pike to recruit them, and he did a pretty good job. A strange, brilliant, man, Pike's career as a General is a minor footnote in his long life |
 The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War The Cherokee people, who had only just begun to recover from the ordeal of removal, faced an equally devastating upheaval in the Civil War. The Cherokee Nation, with its sovereign status and distinct culture, had a wartime experience unlike that of any other group of people |
 Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865: A Riveting Account of a Bloody Chapter in Civil War History The guerilla warfare along the Kansas-Missouri boarder brought forth some of the bloodiest incidents of the Civil War |
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 The Constitution of the Confederate States of America The original document consisted of five vellum sheest pasted together to form a scroll over twelve feet long. The original document was found at a train station in 1865 by Felix DeFontaine. In 1883, he sold the manuscript to Mrs. George Wymberley Jones DeRenne. In 1939, the DeRenne family sold the document to the University of Georgia |
 Shiloh and Corinth: Sentinels of Stone The brave deeds performed by soldiers of the North and South. Approximately 93 striking photographs and accompanying histories bring the battlefields to life, from Shiloh and Savannah, Tennessee, to Iuka and Corinth, Mississippi |
 One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia The first detailed military history of Lee's retreat and the Union effort to catch and destroy the wounded Army of Northern Virginia Complimented with 18 original maps, dozens of photos, and a complete driving tour with GPS coordinates of the entire retreat |
 Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864 This chronicles the great 1864 Overland Campaign, forty days that marked the end of the Civil War. In detail the battles in Virginia's Wilderness to the combat at Spotsylvania the trap laid by Lee at the North Anna River, to the killing ground of Cold Harbor |
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 To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War Thousands of former slaves flocked to southern cities in search of work, they found the demands placed on them as wage-earners disturbingly similar to those they had faced as slaves: seven-day workweeks, endless labor, and poor treatment |
 Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War When Confederate men marched off to battle, southern women struggled with the new responsibilities of directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves |
 Civil War Milledgeville: Tales from the Confederate Capital of Georgia In the town of Milledgeville, Georgia--the state capital during the Civil War the actions of local soldiers and citizens alike tell a story that is unique to that locale. The division between combatant and civilian at the local level is not always clear. The often forgotten events and people that have shaped our larger understanding of the Civil War, from a womens riot to a confederate cavalry rescue. |
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 Ironclads and Big Guns of the Confederacy : The Journal and Letters of John M. Brooke Information about the Confederate Navy's effort to supply its fledgling forces, the wartime diaries and letters of John M. Brooke tell the neglected story of the Confederate naval ordnance office, its innovations, and its strategic vision. |
 Six Years of Hell: Harpers Ferry During the Civil War While Harpers Ferry was an important location during the Civil War, in most Civil War books it's a sideshow of something larger. John Brown's raid, Lee's invasions of 1862 & 1863 as well as Early's 1864 raid are all covered in depth |
 Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth The military campaign that began in early 1862 with the advance to Fort Henry and culminated in late May with the capture of Corinth, Mississippi. The first significant Northern penetration into the Confederate west |
 John Hunt Morgan and His Raiders The "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy" John Hunt Morgan from Tompkinsville, Kentucky to Greeneville, Tennessee. |
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 A Grand Army of Black Men: Letters from African-American Soldiers in the Union Army 1861-1865 Almost 200,000 African-American soldiers fought for the Union in the Civil War. Although most were illiterate ex-slaves, several thousand were well educated, free black men from the northern states |
 Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign The war probably could have been over in 1862 had Lieutenant Phelps destroyed the bridge at Florence. Not doing so provided a retreat for A. S. Johnston to move his men to Corinth and then to Shiloh |
 Lee's Cavalrymen: A History of the Mounted Forces of the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 The cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia its leadership, the military life of its officers and men as revealed in their diaries and letters, the development of its tactics as the war evolved, and the influence of government policies on its operational abilities. All the major players and battles are involved |
 War in Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville Union gains in the Mississippi Valley and in Tennessee and Kentucky had brought the Confederacy to a point of crisis. This addition to the literature on the Civil War in the West tells how the Union then failed to press home its advantage while the Confederacy failed to force Kentucky into the Confederacy |
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The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864 Fought in a tangled forest fringing the south bank of the Rapidan River, the Battle of the Wilderness marked the initial engagement in the climactic months of the Civil War in Virginia, and the first encounter between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee |
 To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13-25, 1864 Spectacular narrative of the initial campaign between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in 1864. May 13 through 25, was critical in the clash between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. |
 Grant's Secret Service: The Intelligence War from Belmont to Appomattox The first scholarly examination of the use of military intelligence under Ulysses S. Grant's command during the Civil War. Feis makes the new and provocative argument that Grant's use of the Army of the Potomac's Bureau of Military Information played a significant role in Lee's defeat |
 Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War In the winter of 1862, on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee, two extraordinary military leaders faced each other in an epic clash that would transform them both and change the course of American history forever |
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 Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History Definitive Reference Work, this volume, rich with over 500 illustrations, 75 maps, and 250 primary source documents, offers more than 1,600 entries that chart the war's strategic aims, analyze diplomatic and political maneuvering, describe key military actions, sketch important participants, assess developments in military science, and discuss the social and financial impact of the conflict. |
 Charles W. Quantrell A True History Of His Guerilla Warfare On The Missouri And Kansas Border During The Civil War Of 1861-1865 This book was written just as Captain Harrison Trow told it to John P. Burch, giving accounts of fights that he participated in, narrow escapes experienced, dilemmas it seemed almost impossible to get out of, and also other battles |
 Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown The story of how Brown was covertly aided by a circle of prosperous and privileged Northeasterners who supplied him with money and weapons, and, before the raid, even hid him in their homes while authorities sought Brown on a murder charge. These men called themselves the Secret Six. |
 The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga All the information you need to understand the flow of the battle at Chattanooga as well as the political intriguing that helped to shape the results is here |
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 Rebel Boast: First at Bethel, Last at Appomattox Based on the stories of 5 men who enlisted in the Confederate Army to fight for what they believed. Where did they go? How did they feel? What did they do day to day? What did they see? How did they live and die? Nominated for a Pulitzer in 1956 |
 Civil War in the American West An accurate and detailed history of the Western Theater of the Civil War, which was largely forgotten by history. He was one of the first historians to fully understand the impact that California had on the war as he gives an accounting of the Federal raid on the Dan Showalter Ranch in San Bernadino on October 5, 1861. |
 "We Shall Meet Again": The First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 18-21, 1861 The First Battle of Manassas claimed the lives of approximately 878 soldiers and wounded another 2,489. With a battlefield stretching nearly five miles, 15,000 Union and 14,000 Confederate soldiers clashed for four fateful days, many of them young and terrified and receiving their first taste of a long and bitter war |
 The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865 The 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge, a bloody disaster for the confederates but a glorious moment for Colonel Stand Watie and his Cherokee Mounted Rifles. The Indians were soon enough swept by the war into a vortex of confusion and chaos. |
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 The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina Chronicles the world of slave and free black fishermen, pilots, rivermen, sailors, ferrymen, and other laborers who, from the colonial era through Reconstruction, plied the vast inland waters of North Carolina from the Outer Banks to the upper reaches of tidewater rivers |
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 Don't Know Much About the Civil War : by Kenneth C. Davis Everything You Need to Know About America's Greatest Conflict but Never Learned |
This fresh look at America's greatest conflict will dispel all those misconceptions you acquired by watching "Gone With the Wind". Davis has a genius for bringing history to life, sorting out the players, the politics and the key events -- Harpers Ferry, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Emancipation, Reconstruction -- in a way that will enlighten even the most dedicated back-of-the-class napper. A brilliant crash course, this book vividly brings to life the people -- from Dred Scott to Abraham Lincoln -- and the everyday details that make up History with a capital H. |
 The Civil War : A Narrative by Shelby Foote Fort Sumter to Perryville Fredericksburg to Meridian Red River to Appomattox |
This beautifully written trilogy of books on the American Civil War is not only a piece of first-rate history, but also a marvelous work of literature. Shelby Foote brings a skilled novelist's narrative power to this great epic. Many know Foote for his prominent role as a commentator on Ken Burns's PBS series about the Civil War. These three books, however, are his legacy. His southern sympathies are apparent: the first volume opens by introducing Confederate President Jefferson Davis, rather than Abraham Lincoln. But they hardly get in the way of the great story Foote tells. This hefty three volume set should be on the bookshelf of any Civil War buff. |
 The Railroads of the Confederacy by: Robert C. Black, Robert C. III Black |
The Railroads of the Confederacy tells the story of the first use of railroads on a major scale in a major war. Robert Black presents a complex tale, with the railroads of the American South playing the part of tragic hero in the Civil War: at first vigorous though immature; then overloaded, driven unmercifully, starved for iron; and eventually worn out - struggling on to inevitable destruction in the wake of Sherman's army, carrying the Confederacy down with them. With maps of all the Confederate railroads and contemporary photographs and facsimiles of such documents as railroad tickets, timetables, and soldiers' passes, the book will captivate railroad enthusiasts as well as readers interested in the Civil War. |
 The American Heritage New History of the Civil War : by Bruce Catton, James M. McPherson |
Hardcover - 640 pages Book & Cd edition (October 1996) |
 Photographic History of the Civil War by William C. Davis, Vicksburg to Appomattox Fighting for Time The South Besieged The End of an Era |
This picture and reference book provides many of the often searched for pictures that have previously been lost in the Library of Congress |
 Grant Rises in the West by Kenneth P. Williams From Iuka to Vicksburg, 1862-1863 |
Paperback - 654 pages University of Nebraska June 1997 |
 'The Damned Red Flags of the Rebellion' by Richard Rollins The Confederate Battle Flag at Gettysburg |
This is the first and foremost book on the subject of the Confederate battle flags. Not only does it provide a very detailed look at the flags lost at Gettysburg but, it also gives a true relationship of the men and their flags and what it meant to them. It is a book all people, who look at the Condeferate Flag either as a symbol of hate or one of a heritage long past, should read. It places the flag and the people surrounding it in their proper light. It tells the concise story of how the flag came to be, it military as well as social place in the American Civil War and in this country's heritage. |
 After Appomattox by Stetson Kennedy How the South Won the War |
"A fascinating study of the failure of Reconstruction. . . . This lively and compelling account of the tragedy of Reconstruction is a useful volume which clearly makes its point and deserves to be read by novices as well as those familiar with the subject. Kennedy uses a variety of sources and successfully argues that although the South lost on the battlefield, they won the war during Reconstruction." |
 Escape from Slavery by: Frederick Douglass, Michael McCurdy The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words |
With the power of his words and the truth of his own experience, Frederick Douglass dramatized the abomination of slavery and the struggle of a young man to break free. In this shortened version of Douglass' 1845 autobiography, McCurdy has done a splendid job of bringing the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to middle-grade readers. |
 Frederick Douglass by: David B. Chesebrough Oratory from Slavery Great American Orators, No. 26 |
Frederick Douglass, once a slave, was one of the great 19th century American orators and the most important African American voice of his era. This book traces the development of his rhetorical skills, discusses the effect of his oratory on his contemporaries, and analyzes the specific oratorical techniques he employed. |
 Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston |
First detailed study of a Texas city during the Civil War. At the end of the war, Galveston was the last major port in Confederate hands. Its story is dramatic and one of the great untold stories of the war. A must for anyone interested in the Trans-Mississippi department as well as the serious collector. Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America's bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. Galveston emerged as one of the Confederacy's only lifelines to the outside world. |
 Antietam The Soldiers Battle |
Synopsis : A historian tells of this bloody Civil War battle from an entirely new point of view: that of the common enlisted man. Seventy-two detailed maps describe the battle in both hourly and quarter-hourly formats. 37 rare photos.
As the book runs from anectdote to anectdote, the reader is able to get a clearer picture of the battle and what happened there. As a Civil War Reenactor, my unit fought at Antietam, and the anectdotes helped me to be more realistic in my impression. |
 Days of Defiance by Maury Klein Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War |
Military History Editor's Recommended Book Maury Klein's knack for words shows up on the first page of this book: "How could the oldest, deadliest, most divisive conflict of a proud nation come down, after decades of bitter strife, to a dispute over an insignificant fort squatting on a hunk of rock in the harbor of the South's oldest and most defiant city?" Klein, a history professor at the University of Rhode Island, goes on to answer this question in lively prose. The Fort Sumter saga, of course, has been told well by others, but Klein makes the tale worth reading again. |
 The Alabama and the Kearsarge by William Marvel The Sailor's Civil War Civil War America |
 American Realities by J. William T. Youngs, Cecly Moon Historical Episodes : From the First Settlements to the Civil War |
Paperback - 322 pages Addison-Wesley 1996 4th edition |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe by Suzanne M. Coil Impact Books Impact Biographies |
Grade 7-12. Coil's admiring biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe creates a portrait of the celebrated author as a dutiful daughter; a committed abolitionist; a loving wife devoted to an often brilliant but ineffectual husband. The biography will be a useful addition to any collection, but it will be particularly helpful to students needing information about the years leading up to the Civil War, the work of the abolitionists, and the novel that "moved the world." |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe |
An international bestseller that sold more than 300,000 copies when it first appeared in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin was dismissed by some as abolitionist propaganda; yet Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature "flowing from love of God and man." Today, however, Harriet Beecher Stowe's stirring indictment of slavery is often confused with garish dramatizations that flourished for decades after the Civil War: productions that relied heavily on melodramatic simplifications of character totally alien to the original. Thus "Uncle Tom" has become a pejorative term for a subservient black, whereas Uncle Tom in the book is a man who, under the most inhumane of circumstances, never loses his human dignity. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the most powerful and most enduring work of art ever written about American slavery," said Alfred Kazin. |
 The Mutiny at Brandy Station: The Last Battle of the Hooker Brigade |
THE MUTINY AT BRANDY STATION presents, in microcosm, the character and actions of men who served the United States Army of the Potomac in 1864. The story follows key players through the reorganization, the courts martial, and into the Wilderness using direct quotes from their diaries, memoirs, and reports as well as original transcripts of the trials. 78 b&w illustrations. |
 Chesapeake Bay in the Civil War by Eric L. Mills |
Received a copy of this splendid book Xmas 1996. Have already read it cover-to-cover three times. Have not met its superior for information and entertainment in more than 50 years of reading Civil War material. To those of us with "second homes" on Virginia's Eastern Shore (Chincoteague in this instance), it is a real eye-opener--and long overdue. Highest possible recommendation |
| Battle at Ball's Bluff by Kim B. Holien |
| The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command by Edward Hagerman Ideas, Organization, and Field Command |
The American Civil War was a war of transition: a war of romanticism and idealism fought by a large citizen army with the first tools of modern warfare. This book is a must for students of American history and military affairs. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. |
| The Alabama Confederate Reader by Malcolm C. McMillan Library of Alabama Classics |
Paperback - 468 pages University of Alabama Press Reprint edition 1992 |
| Andersonville by William Marvel The Last Depot (Civil War America) |
| The Abc-Clio Companion to American Reconstruction by William L. Richter 1862-1877 Abc-Clio Companions to Key Issues in American History and Life |
Reconstruction has been more misinterpreted than in any other era of American history, and this seeks to remedy the problem through a thorough documentation of the politics, ideas, incidents and power struggles which took place during the era. An alphabetical format containing over 150 entries provides important keys to understanding the era: a "must" for any serious American history collection or course of study at the high school or college levels. |
| Battle at Bull Run by William C. Davis A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War |
This new and revised edition of the original 1977 book offers the reader a splendid narrative of the first major battle of the American Civil War. On the 21st of July 1861, 60,000 American soldiers from the North and South met along the banks of Bull Run. In the fighting that followed the Union forces lost 2,900 out of the 20,000 men engaged while the Confederates lost 2,000 out of about 17,000 engaged. This book is an enjoyable and easy to read story and is well presented by a number of photographs taken at the time of the battle or shortly after. The author has included 8 small, but easy to read maps that help you follow the outline of events during the battle. This book is recommended to any body who has a love for this period of history or to the general reader who likes a good story. |
| The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861 : by Stanley Harrold | Stanley Harrold’s well-written work is an important contribution to antislavery historiography. Taking to task those historians who see antislavery as primarily a movement to reform Northern society, Harrold demonstrates that Northern and Southern abolitionists were active in the South up until the Civil War. Furthermore, Harrold makes a convincing case that the very real abolitionist presence in the Upper South was a "precipitative cause of secession and the Civil War." For Harrold, the Southern response to the abolitionist threat was neither irrational or exaggerated. I commend Harrold’s work to any student of antislavery or the antebellum South. |
 Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad |
Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad is the retelling of a man's recollections of his first experience helping an escaped slave. The book brings the underground railroad down to the level primary students can comprehend. This book makes for wonderful discussions regarding overcoming one's fears, going against the norm and doing what you believe to be morally correct. |
 Above a Common Soldier : by Charles Francis Clarke Darlis A. Miller Frank and Mary Clarke in the American West and Civil War |
First published as TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION in 1941, this rare volume of Civil War-era letters relates the poignant experiences of an English immigrant in the service of the United States Army. After Frank Clarke's tragic death in 1862, his wife Mary corresponded with his English mother, detailing the daily struggles of a military widow and her five sons in frontier Kansas. 12 halftones . |
 The Battle of Glorieta Pass by Thomas S. Edrington, John Taylor A Gettysburg in the West, March 26-28, 1862 |
Following the third day of the Battle of Glorieta Pass, the Texans found themselves surrounded without provisions. Thomas Edrington and John Taylor combine data from records and documents with their firsthand inspections of the battlefield to reconstruct what happened on both sides of the line before, during, and after this controversial Civil War engagement. 35 photos. 14 maps. |
| 1863 : The Crucial Year by C. Carter Smith A Sourcebook on the Civil War (American Albums from the Collections of the Library of Congress) |
Focusing on the Civil War's most critical year, this illustrated history of 1863 begins with the Emancipation Proclamation and details the Union's key victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, which turned the tide against the Confederacy. |
| No Better Place to Die by Peter Cozzens The Battle of Stones River |
Cozzens's chronicle of the Battle of Stones River is a superb, engaging work. His careful work and skillful writing does justice to the memories of the 24,988 men who were injured or killed those cold days in Tennessee. |
 First Manassas Voices of the Civil War |
The soilders story of the battle in their own words rather then hearing the historians perspective of battle we read the privates letter home or the Colonels battle report this book examines Bull Run, the battle for West Virginia, and the battle of Big Bethel |
| Admiral David Dixon Porter by Chester G. Hearn The Civil War Years |
 Admiral David Glasgow Farragut by Chester G. Hearn The Civil War Years |
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