Book Suggestions?

[FiremarshalBill]

I'm going on an ocean cruise next month and I need a good ACW book to take along for the slow hours between ports. I love Jeff Shaara's books, but I've read every one. Ralph Peter's books as well. I'm currently reading "The Darkest Days Of The War - The Battles of Iuka and Corinth" by Peter Cozzens, but it's a bit dry. Any suggestions for a riveting ACW novel? Thanks!

 

[unicornforge]

Time Life Books reprinted a bunch of autobiographies of soldiers and civilians who lived through the War of the Rebellion. They provide insight into life, politics, and details that I have not seen elsewhere. In my humble opinion, more interesting than novels that might have misinformation and/or errors of history.

Such as:

Hardtack and Coffee, or The Unwritten Story of Army Life (Collector's Library of the Civil War) – January, 1983 By John D Billings (Author), Charles W. Reed (Author)

Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 (Collector's Library of the Civil War) Leather Bound – October, 1982 by Carlton McCarthy (Author)

The Citizen-Soldier; Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer (Collector's Library of the Civil War) Hardcover – March, 1983 by John Beatty (Author)

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary-Vol I Hardcover – January 1, 1982 By John B. Jones (Author)
A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital: Vol 2 (Collector's Library of the Civil War) Hardcover – January, 1983by John B. Jones (Author)

Mosby's Rangers (Collector's Library of the Civil War) reprinted January, 1983
byJames Joseph Williamson (Author)

Four Years in the Saddle: 1861~1865 (Abridged, Annotated)Paperback – November 11, 2016
by Author Harry Gilmor (Author)

A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin (Signet Classics) Mass Market Paperback – June 1, 2010
by Joseph Plumb Martin (Author), Thomas Fleming (Introduction), William Chad Stanley (Afterword)

 

[nitrofd]

"Battle Cry of Freedom"would be my pick,some consider it the best modern day rendition of the civil war.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

It's not a novel, but it reads something like one in places, and it's setting-appropriate for an ocean cruise: William Marvel's The Alabama and the Kearsarge: The Sailor's Civil War. (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996. 348 pp.) It's one I always could envision a historical miniseries being made out of.

 

[Jamieva]

I would take volume 1 of Foote's trilogy

 

[Brenal]

Not a novel but reads like one "Confederate Corsair The Life of Lt. Charles W. Savez Read" by Robert A Jones. Good sea story.

 

[Sid J.]

The best civil war novel is Gone With the Wind.

 

[alan polk]

Well written novel: "Shiloh" by Shelby Foote.

 

[Philip Leigh]

Not a novel but reads like one "Confederate Corsair The Life of Lt. Charles W. Savez Read" by Robert A Jones. Good sea story.

This is perhaps the single greatest adventure story of the Civil War.

Although it is not a novel, it underscore's author Tom Wolfe's (The Right Stuff and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) famous quote: "The problem with fiction is that it must be plausible. That's not true of non-fiction."

 

[Philip Leigh]

I'm going on an ocean cruise next month and I need a good ACW book to take along for the slow hours between ports. I love Jeff Shaara's books, but I've read every one. Ralph Peter's books as well. I'm currently reading "The Darkest Days Of The War - The Battles of Iuka and Corinth" by Peter Cozzens, but it's a bit dry. Any suggestions for a riveting ACW novel? Thanks!

Thomas Keneally's Confederates. Among other points, the novel provides a captivating speculation about how "Lee's Lost Dispatch" got lost.

 

[Jimklag]

The best civil war novel is Gone With the Wind.

The Red Badge Of Courage is quite good. GWTW is not really about the war. More about plantation life.

 

[Mike Griffith]

If you want some deep, thought-provoking reading, I'd recommend Yale professor Harry Stout's Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War.

 

[James N.]

I'll repeat here my favorite mantra: Life's too short to read novels... though I've made exceptions for both Shaaras and Shelby Foote.

 

[johan_steele]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375726608/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Nothing but Victory by Woodworth

 

[Legion Para]

 

[Legion Para]

 

[FiremarshalBill]

One of my all time favorite books.

 

[Nathanb1]

1. Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell. You may find it as Ride with the Devil; it was retitled for the film. Wonderful novel.
2. The Black Flower, The Judas Field and Land of Jubilo by Howard Bahr. Award-winning author, books much in the style of Faulkner, and truly wonderful. The first two are on Franklin and the aftermath. The third is...well, surprising but also Civil War/Reconstruction themed.

And just as good as novels...Eric Wittenberg's Plenty of Blame to Go Around and his One Continuous Fight will open your eyes on Stuart prior to Gettysburg and on the retreat. Hmmm.....all those wagons came in right handy, didn't they?

 

[PeterT]

And just as good as novels...Eric Wittenberg's Plenty of Blame to Go Around and his One Continuous Fight will open your eyes on Stuart prior to Gettysburg and on the retreat. Hmmm.....all those wagons came in right handy, didn't they?

I echo this! Any of Eric's books are terrific. Reading One Continous Fight now. Find it hard to put down.

 

[Nathanb1]

I echo this! Any of Eric's books are terrific. Reading One Continous Fight now. Find it hard to put down.

Eric's writing makes them wonderful reading...you'd think they were fiction if you didn't know better. He wins my award for the most ways to describe mounting, dismounting, and riding a horse. Never boring, always intriguing.