A Refugee at Hanover Tavern: The Civil War Diary of Margaret Wight Edited by Shirley A. Haas and Dale Paige Talley (History Press, 2013); $21.99 During our May Overland Campaign tour with Gordon Rhea, I happened across this book in the Hanover Tavern bookstore. I quickly picked it up, and it crossed my eyes … Read more
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History Edited by Alan Nolan and Gary Gallagher (Indiana University Press, 2000); 231 pages Twenty years ago, I picked up this book and read it. It was less than a year after 9/11, and knowing the dust-up between Nolan and Lee defenders after Alan’s controversial … Read more
No star rating Anti-Slavery Addresses of 1844 and 1845 By Salmon Portland Chase and Charles Dexter Cleveland (Sampson, Low, Son and Marston, 1867; reprinted by Negro Universities Press, 1969) By Len Riedel A few weeks ago, I finished a book from my African American shelf intending to roll it into July. But then, having also … Read more
Reflections on the Civil War By Bruce Catton, edited by John Leekley (Doubleday and Company, 1981, 240 pages plus index) In 1973, as a cadet at Virginia Military Institute, I took the legendary professor John Barrett’s course on the Civil War and Reconstruction. As part of the class, we were required to read 1,000 pages … Read more
Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War By Samuel C. Gwynne (Scribner Press, 2019, 325 pages) A couple of years ago I was given Rebel Yell, a new biography on Stonewall Jackson that was very highly regarded. I set it aside, having read Bud Robertson’s definitive biography on Jackson. … Read more
The Night the War Was Lost By Charles L. Dufour (Doubleday and Company, 1960, 427 pages) It is always a delight to pick up a book that has been on your shelves for years, and which you had never looked at twice, and find it is a diamond in the rough. That is my honest … Read more
Articles of War: Winners, Losers, and Some Who Were Both in the Civil War By Albert Castel (Stackpole Books, 2001, 244 pages) With a personal library of more than 5,000 books, I have more books than I will ever read in my life. And so, in selecting “unread” books, I went to my various … Read more
The Road to Appomattox By Bell Irvin Wiley (Memphis State College Press, 1956) A legend in the Civil War historical community, Bell Wiley was noted for his two seminal studies of the common soldiers of the Confederacy and Union: The Life of Johnny Reb was published in 1943 in the midst of World War 2, and The … Read more
Storm Over the Land: A Profile of the Civil War By Carl Sandburg (Mariner Books, 2000; originally published 1939) In our current assault on American history, it is often useful to reflect back on how war was treated in our past. Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and historian Carl Sandburg presents us with one such prism with … Read more
Meade at Gettysburg, A Study in Command By Kent Masterson Brown (UNC Press, 2021) Check out this interview with Brown on BGES’s YouTube channel: A Conversation with Kent Masterson Brown on his book, Meade at Gettysburg.“ This came close to being my first 5-star review, but It fell short as I will explain in a … Read more
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