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: 6/9/13
Grant at Vicksburg (2013)
Grant at Vicksburg is much more than a biography or campaign study. The depth of Michael Ballard’s research into Grant’s correspondence and routine make it a study in command, control,...
Published: 6/5/13
A Misplaced Massacre (2013)
November 29, 2014, will mark the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre. On that day in 1864, elements of the 1st and 3rd Colorado volunteer regiments slaughtered more than...
Published: 5/29/13
They Have Left Us Here To Die (2011)
Glen Robins’ transcription and analysis of Sargent Lyle G. Adair’s prison diary provides insight into the Civil War prison camp experience. In They Have Left Us Here to Die, Robins...
Published: 5/29/13
Unholy Sabbath (2012)
Discussion of the skirmishes fought on the mountain passes of western Maryland in mid-September 1862 is usually met with wide eyes. Although South Mountain is traditionally written off as an...
Published: 5/29/13
Divided Loyalties (2012)
In this concise volume, James Finck, a professor at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, offers a reconsideration of white Kentuckians decision to remain neutral—and then ultimately join...
Published: 5/22/13
America on the Eve of the Civil War (2010)
At first glance, America on the Eve of the Civil War: A Virginia Sesquicentennial Signature Conference stands apart from most edited volumes both in aim and in organization. Essentially a transcription...
Published: 5/22/13
Andrew Johnson’s Civil War (2011)
Few Presidents have witnessed as drastic a historiographical shift as Andrew Johnson. Hailed in the early twentieth-century as both a defender of the Constitution and a steadfast barrier to Congressional...
Published: 5/22/13
Mending Broken Soldiers (2012)
The American Civil War acted like a battering ram on the human body. Debilitating diseases incapacitated soldiers for weeks and months. Gleaming bayonet blades, soaring shrapnel and shells and leaden...
Published: 5/15/13
Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (2013)
When I received my review copy of Allen C. Guelzo’s Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, I asked myself, “does the world need another one-volume history of Gettysburg?” Recent fine monographs on...
Published: 5/8/13
Becoming Confederates (2013)
Much of the work of the historian comes down to explaining what drove historic actors to behave as they did. For Civil War historians the questions are unusually thorny, and...
Published: 5/1/13
Freedom National (2012)
James Oakes has received high praise for his Lincoln Prize winning Freedom National: the Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. When an eminent nineteenth-century historian tackles this topic...
Published: 4/24/13
Diverging Loyalties (2011)
Bruce T. Gourley’s Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the Civil War is an engrossing, enlightening exploration of our nation’s greatest trauma, as seen through the eyes of a unique...
Published: 4/17/13
A Self-Evident Lie (2013)
Ironically, the falsehood discussed in Jeremy J. Tewell’s important study, A Self-Evident Lie: Southern Slavery and the Threat to American Freedom would not be considered a lie today. His title refers...
Published: 4/10/13
Guerrillas in Civil War Missouri (2012)
The past several years have seen a great increase in interest in the history of the guerrilla conflict by both scholars and amateur historians alike. It seems that wherever one...
Published: 4/3/13
The CSS Virginia (2012)
As one of the main participants in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the CSS Virginia has received considerable attention from historians. But these works tend to focus on the ship’s novel...
Published: 3/27/13
Freedom Papers (2012)
In September 1899, Edouard Tinchant (1841-1915), a man of Haitian descent with an unusual background, including service in Company C 6th Louisiana Volunteers, during the Civil War, wrote to Maximo...
Published: 3/20/13
John Brown’s Spy (2012)
In the past 20 years no less than three significant monographs, each written by a capable scholar, have documented and analyzed the life of abolitionist and insurrectionist John Brown or...
Published: 3/20/13
Abraham Lincoln and White America (2012)
Countless books and articles about Abraham Lincoln’s views and policies on slavery and race have appeared over the years, but Brian Dirck is the first historian to explore Lincoln’s identity...