America's Civil War - a bimonthly magazine that takes an in-depth look at the war between the states.

 
Civil War Times Illustrated - a bimonthly magazine that brings the people, places and battles to life.

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This is a very readable and thorough story of the Civil War.  It is said that Shelby Foote wrote this series by pencil rather than on a typewriter so that the necessary time was taken to get the words just right.  I think he succeeded.  If I were to read or own no other book on the Civil War, this is the set that I would want to read and own.  ~SLB~

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Battle Cry of Freedom is an excellent one-volume treatment of the Civil War and the preceding years.  Particularly well-written is the recounting of the social, economic, and political buildup to the Civil War in the United States during the early and mid-1800's.  The book is worth reading just for that part of our national history.  ~SLB~

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Killer Angels is a book very hard to lay down.  Accurate in the known historical detail, the book is also spellbinding for Shaara's take on the thoughts of the generals and soldiers involved in that pivotal event in American history.  Even though it is a "fictional" account, it would be an excellent book to read before visiting Gettysburg.  It is on this book that the movie, Gettysburg, is based.   ~SLB~

Gods and Generals, written by the son of Michael Shaara, is a "prequel" to The Killer Angels.  He weaves this novel from the vantage point of four men:  Robert E. Lee, Winfield Scott Hancock, Thomas Johathan Jackson, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.  One of the most poignant scenes in this book is a vignette of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's friendship with a little girl following the Union debacle at Fredericksburg.    ~SLB~

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Warrior Generals falls under what might be called revisionist history.  Thomas Buell is a naval destroyer captain turned military historian and writes in a precise manner.  The book is written interweaving the stories of six men who repeatedly met on the battlefield:  Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee; George H. Thomas and John B. Hood; Francis C. Barlow and John B. Gordon.  I found the portrait of George Thomas particularly compelling.  A New York Times Book Review stated, "The combat scenes are so authentic and vivid that a reader...can smell the powder again."   ~SLB~

Stowe's classic work was the second most widely read book (next to the Bible) of the nineteenth century in America.  The book has a literary style - Stowe occasionally pauses to "talk" to the reader - meant to not-so-subtly convince the reader of her views.  This edition has some additional material, the best among which is the letters from former slaves.  The book had a significant impact on the history of the United States.  It is highly readable and important reading.   ~SLB~

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Tony Horwitz was winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.  A war correspondent who spent almost a decade covering conflicts overseas in Bosnia and the Middle East, he came back to the United States and took up a project that resulted in this book.  As a boy he was passionate about the Civil War, painting battle scenes in the attic of his home.  In Confederates in the Attic, he writes "dispatches" from various parts of the South where the Civil War was fought.  He provides inside images of reenactors, both casual and hardcore.  His chapter on Shiloh and meeting Shelby Foote alone is worth getting the book.  But there is much, much more in this fascinating account of where we are as a nation one hundred and thirty-some-odd years removed from the greatest conflict on our land.  ~SLB~

Charles Frazier, in this his first book, set during the Civil War years, won a National Book Award.  His ability to paint word pictures is so keen that the reader can virtually see what he is describing.  Starting at a Confederate hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Inman (the main character) has been moved after receiving a battle wound in Virginia, the story moves steadily westward toward Cold Mountain.  It is a delightful read and highly recommended by those who have partaken of it.  Sure to be appreciated by North Carolinians and those not as familiar with this grand state.   ~SLB~

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© 1999 S. L. Braun