Book Reviews
The digital home of book reviews and author interviews—and your source of the most up-to-date information on all things Civil War literature
Published: 11/15/17
DIRCK: Lincoln in Indiana (2017)
Lincoln in Indiana by Brian R. Dirck. Southern Illinois University Press, 2017. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0809335657. $24.95. Historians and the general public alike have been fascinated with the life of Abraham Lincoln for...
Published: 11/8/17
HURLEY: California and the Civil War (2017)
California and the Civil War by Richard Hurley. History Press, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-1625858245. $21.99. Richard Hurley, an active popular and public historian, has provided an engaging and accessible primer to the complexities...
Published: 10/25/17
QUIGLEY: Pure Heart (2016)
Pure Heart: The Faith of a Father and Son in the War for a More Perfect Union by William F. Quigley, Jr. Kent State University Press, 2016. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1606352861. $39.95. In...
Published: 10/18/17
DAVIS: All the Fighting They Want (2017)
All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City’s Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864 by Stephen Davis. Savas Beatie, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-1611213195. $14.95. In a 2007 Civil...
Published: 10/11/17
GREEN: McClellan and the Union High Command (2017)
McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863: Leadership Gaps That Cost a Timely Victory by Jeffrey W. Green. McFarland, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-1476665733. $35.00. Union strategy and command structure has become the...
Published: 10/4/17
HETTLE: The Confederate Homefront (2017)
The Confederate Homefront: A History in Documents by Wallace Hettle. Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Paper, ISBN: 978-0807165720. $29.95. With the fate of Confederate monuments across the South being hotly contested,...
Published: 9/27/17
CRAIG & ULLRICH: Unconditional Unionist (2016)
Unconditional Unionist: The Hazardous Life of Lucian Anderson, Kentucky Congressman by Berry Craig and Deiter C. Ullrich. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016. Paper, ISBN: 978-1476663692. $35.00. Kentucky is the sphinx on...
Published: 9/20/17
FOUGHT: Women in the World of Frederick Douglass (2017)
Women in the World of Frederick Douglass by Leigh Fought. Oxford University Press, 2017. Cloth, ISBN: 9780199782376. $29.95. In 1838, Anna Murray helped her future-husband escape slavery. Although circumscribed by gender and racism...
Published: 9/13/17
WALDSTREICHER & MASON: John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery (2016)
John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from the Diary by David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason. Oxford University Press, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0199947959. $29.95. The past twenty years have...
Published: 9/6/17
PITTMAN: Rebels in the Rockies (2014)
Rebels in the Rockies: Confederate Irregulars in the Western Territories by Walter Earl Pittman. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-0786478200. $39.95. In 2000, in an article in Civil War History, Daniel...
Published: 8/30/17
EGERTON: Thunder at the Gates (2016)
Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America by Douglas R. Egerton. Basic Books, Cloth, ISBN: 978-0465096640. $32.00. Douglas R. Egerton, professor of History at Le Moyne College, has spent...
Published: 8/30/17
MEZUREK: For Their Own Cause (2016)
For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops by Kelly D. Mezurek. The Kent State University Press, 2016. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1606352892. $37.95. Kelly D. Mezurek’s study of the 27th...
Published: 8/23/17
EMBERTON & BAKER (eds.): Remembering Reconstruction (2017)
Remembering Reconstruction: Struggles Over the Meaning of America’s Most Turbulent Era edited by Carole Emberton and Bruce E. Baker. Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Cloth, IBSN: 978-0807166024. $43.50. For nearly two decades, David...
Published: 8/16/17
BETIT: War’s Cost (2016)
War’s Cost: The Hites’ Civil War by Eugene DeFriest Bétit. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016. Paper, IBSN: 978-1530062713. $15.00. By observing individual historical actors, a historian may reveal additional knowledge about...
Published: 8/16/17
FRAZIER: Blood on the Bayou (2015)
Blood on the Bayou: Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and the Trans-Mississippi by Donald S. Frazier. State House Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1933337630. $39.99. Donald S. Frazier, a professor of History at McMurry University,...
Published: 8/9/17
EPPS: Slavery on the Periphery (2016)
Slavery on the Periphery: The Kansas-Missouri Border in the Antebellum and Civil War Years by Kristen Epps. University of Georgia Press, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0820350509. $59.95. When we think about the places...
Published: 8/2/17
CAMPI: Civil War Battlefields (2016)
Civil War Battlefields: Then and Now by James Campi, Jr. Pavilion Books, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1-9109048-0-0. $19.95. Celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner noted at the conflict’s end that his work...
Published: 7/26/17
FILIPOWSKI & HARRINGTON: The Boy Soldier (2016)
The Boy Soldier: Edwin Jemison and the Story Behind the Most Remarkable Portrait of the Civil War by Alexandra Filipowski and Hugh T. Harrington. Westholme Publishing, 2016. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1-59416-264-0. $26.00....