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: 7/2/14
PLUMB (ed.): Your Brother in Arms (2011)
Your Brother in Arms: A Union Soldier’s Odyssey edited by Robert C. Plumb. University of Missouri Press, 2011. Cloth, ISBN: 0826219209. $34.95. In August 1862, nineteen year old George Pressly McClelland,...
Published: 6/25/14
HAGER: Word by Word (2013)
Word By Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing by Christopher Hager. Harvard University Press, 2013. Cloth, IBSN: 0674059867. $39.95. In Word by Word, Christopher Hager examines selected antebellum and wartime writings...
Published: 6/25/14
SPARKS: Where the Negroes Are Masters (2013)
Where the Negroes Are Masters: An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade by Randy J. Sparks. Harvard University Press, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 0674724879. $29.95. As plantation owners sold...
Published: 6/18/14
VARNEY: General Grant and the Rewriting of History (2013)
General Grant and the Rewriting of History: How the Destruction of William S. Rosecrans Influenced Our Understanding of the Civil War by Frank P. Varney. Savas Beatie, 2013. Cloth, IBSN: 1611211182....
Published: 6/11/14
QUARSTEIN: Big Bethel (2011)
Big Bethel: The First Battle by John V. Quarstein. The History Press, 2011. Paper, ISBN: 1609493540. $19.99. Historians of the Civil War have traditionally questioned the significance of the first combat...
Published: 6/11/14
COBB, HICKS & HOLT: Battle of Big Bethel (2013)
Battle of Big Bethel: Crucial Clash in Early Civil War Virginia by J. Michael Cobb, Edward B. Hicks, and Wythe Holt. Savas Beatie, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 1611211166. $27.95. Within weeks of...
Published: 6/4/14
RACINE: Living a Big War in a Small Place (2013)
Living a Big War in a Small Place: Spartanburg, South Carolina during the Confederacy by Philip N. Racine. University of South Carolina Press, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 1611172977. $21.95. As the title...
Published: 5/28/14
MINGUS: Confederate General William “Extra Billy” Smith (2013)
Confederate General William “Extra Billy” Smith: From Virginia’s Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat by Scott L. Mingus, Sr. Savas Beatie, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 1611211298. $29.95. As the nickname for which he became...
Published: 5/21/14
COHEN: Reconstructing the Campus (2012)
Reconstructing the Campus: Higher Education and the American Civil War by Michael David Cohen. University of Virginia Press, 2012. Cloth, ISBN: 9780813933177. $45.00. Reconstructing the Campus examines the effect of the Civil...
Published: 5/21/14
REINHART (ed.): Yankee Dutchmen under Fire (2013)
Yankee Dutchmen under Fire: Civil War Letters from the 82nd Illinois Infantry edited by Joseph R. Reinhart. Kent State University Press, 2013. Cloth, IBSN: 1606351761. $45.00. Joseph R. Reinhart’s new volume...
Published: 5/14/14
MARTEN: America’s Corporal (2014)
America’s Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace by James Marten. University of Georgia Press, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 0820343218. $24.95. The cover blurb for America’s Corporal describes the book’s subject, James Tanner, as...
Published: 5/7/14
MACKOWSKI & WHITE: Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front (2013)
Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church, May 3, 1863 by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White. Savas Beatie, 2013. Cloth, IBSN: 1611211360. $32.95. In Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front,...
Published: 5/7/14
DAVIS & GREENWALT: Bloody Autumn (2014)
Bloody Autumn: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 by Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt. Savas Beatie, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 1611211654. $12.95. Although historians still need to reserve judgment on...
Published: 4/30/14
WOODWARD: Marching Masters (2014)
Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army During the Civil War by Colin Edward Woodward. University of Virginia Press, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 9780813935416. $39.50. The most controversial aspect of the...
Published: 4/23/14
BLIGHT (ed.): My Bondage and My Freedom (2014)
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass and edited by David W. Blight. Yale University Press, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 030019059X. $13.00. The public domain is a rich and growing trove...
Published: 4/23/14
LUEBKE (ed.): The Story of a Thousand (2011)
The Story of a Thousand, Being a History of the Service of the 105th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Union, from August 21, 1862, to June 6,...
Published: 4/2/14
DAL LAGO: William Lloyd Garrison and Giuseppe Mazzini (2013)
William Lloyd Garrison and Giuseppe Mazzini: Abolition, Democracy, and Radical Reform by Enrico Dal Lago. Louisiana State University Press, 2013. ISBN: 0807152064. $42.50. Enrico Dal Lago’s oeuvre demonstrates his breadth of...
Published: 3/26/14
KREISER: Defeating Lee (2011)
Defeating Lee: A History of the Second Corps, Army of the Potomac by Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr. Indiana University Press, 2011. Cloth, ISBN: 0253356164. $34.95. From the slaughter in the West...