Park Service -a guide to Civil War Books

[samgrant]

Here is a link to the National Park Service's suggestions of books relating to many different aspects of the Civil War:

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/categr..._war_paper.htm

[gary]

How embarassing. Of that entire list, I've only read a few of them.

Guess I'm not too much into modern hysterians but I did read Bruce Catton's, three volume, "Army of the Potomac" and his, "Grant Moves South." I've read Douglas Freeman's three volume, "Lee's Lieutenants" and Paddy Griffith's, "Battle Tactics" and Craig Symond's, "Stonewall of the West." I've also read Arthur Bergerons, "Confederate Mobile" and Gordon Rhea's four series volume on Grant's Overland Campaign and Ed Bearss's three volume set, "Vicksburg." I've read Alice R. Trulocks, "In the Hands of Providence" and Bell Irving Wiley's, "Life of Johnny Reb" and "Life of Billy Yank."

Out of a library approaching 400 volumes, that really doesn't say much for my scholarship. Den agin, hoo sed I wuz ah skawlah enywei? Ah did git Arthur Bergeron tu autoegraff sum ov hiz buuks fah me and win ey mit Ed Bearss, hee sigh'd mah set o' Vicksburg buuks too.

[johan_steele]

I was suprised how many of those books I have read.

William B. Hesseltine, Civil War Prisons: A Study in War Psychology if you can find it spare no expense its well worth it. As an aside he was the man who taught Stephen Ambrose history.

All of these are must reads as are many others on that list:

Joseph T. Glatthaar, The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops and the Carolinas Campaigns (New York: New York University Press, 1986); Larry J. Daniel, Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: a Portrait of Life in the Confederate Army (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); and J. Tracy Power, Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).

Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Army: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (New York: Longmans Green, 1956) and Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers

Wiley The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1943) and The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952).James M. McPherson What They Fought For, 1861-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994) and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War

Jeffry D. Wert, James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier Brian Steel Wills, A Battle from the State: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest Craig L. Symonds, Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War John Marszalek's Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order (New York: Free Press, 1993). Michael Fellman, Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh
Lee Kennett's Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians during Sherman's Campaign (New York HarperCollins, 1995).Albert Castel, Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1992).

Benjamin Franklin Cooling persuasively argues for the strategic significance of western theater river warfare in Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987). Wiley Sword, Shiloh: Bloody April (New York: William Morrow, 1974). Larry J. Daniel, Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
Gerald J. Prokopowicz, All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862 (Chapel Hill: University of the North Carolina Press, 2001). The Union Cavalry in the Civil War (3 vols.; Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1979-1985), Stephen Starr
Paddy Griffith Battle Tactics of the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics on the Southern Heritage