NF More Books...

[Bryan_C]

Recently, I posted some of the new books I've acquired. Here are a few more.

The only one I bought brand new is Faces of the Civil War Navies by Ron Coddington. I've met Ron and he's a great guy. Plus, I have his other books. I think his next one is supposed to be on Civil War women.

I got Embattled Confederates from the thrift store. I think it is out of print but it looks like inexpensive copies are available.

The Civil War Sketch Book is an ex-library book. I went to the Smithsonian a few days ago and saw this book. I actually like ex-library books because they are often low price (I got mine for about 50% less than the Smithsonian's price) and they already have the Bro-dart clear covers on them (I put them on the other two books myself). I have noticed something interesting about my acquisitions of ex-library Civil War books: many of them were purged from public libraries local to my area. I live in Maryland (Washington, DC suburbs).

I know that libraries routinely purge books that don't circulate well, including some that were never checked out at all. Eventually, these books end up in the warehouses of online booksellers like Amazon, Alibris or Abebooks. But it's funny that I'll buy a book online from a seller in Illinois, California or wherever and then when I get the book, I discover that it came from this area. This was the case with the Sketch Book.

This book has a sketch I've never seen before- apparently, a sketch artist was there at the Ellsworth-Jackson incident at the Marshall House Hotel. I've seen a number of illustrations depicting the incident but if this was drawn "live," this is really powerful.

Here are all of the books I have picked up recently.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

One can never have too many Civil War books (says the guy with 2100 of them)....

 

[libraryguy]

I sort of wondered how many is "many" for folks in this forum. Now I have other interests,such as adventure type books ala Doc Savage, Tarzan and many others in the comics area so that collection is oh maybe 500 books. I now have 54 civil War books..then I read this. Dang....

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

My Civil War book collection numbers about 2000 volumes now.

 

[libraryguy]

My Civil War book collection numbers about 2000 volumes now.

Yipes! Do you have an emphasis on some particular area? Mine at this point is the cause(s) and particularly the Southern points of view, but really just started last year.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

Yipes! Do you have an emphasis on some particular area? Mine at this point is the cause(s) and particularly the Southern points of view, but really just started last year.

I am known for two things: cavalry operations and the Gettysburg Campaign. I have three full bookcases full of cavalry stuff--mostly regimental histories, but also memoirs and edited volumes of letters, all of which include both Confederate and Union and covering all theaters of the war. Counting the books that I have written, I have about 75 Gettysburg Campaign titles. I also have about 30 volumes on the Chancellorsville Campaign, which remains of great interest to me. The rest of my library includes a complete set of the Official Records (128 volumes), about one third of the Broadfoot Supplement to the Official Records (I canceled my subscription after a while, as I didn't think the later volumes justified the steep cost), 75-100 published biographies, infantry and artillery regimental histories of both sides, campaign studies from all theaters of the war (Sherman's 1865 Carolinas Campaign is of particular interest, and I tend to buy anything associated with it), published memoirs/letters, and a fairly large section of miscellaneous reference and other miscellaneous things. I also have a number of first editions of works, often signed by their authors (I know pretty much everyone significant writing about the Civil War today), including many by participants in the Civil War.

Please understand that mine is a working library; my 20th book on the Civil War is a couple of weeks from going to the printer. Due to space limitations, I typically only buy things that are pertinent to my work, and rarely buy things that are not.

 

[libraryguy]

Oh I see you are also a writer of CV books. Well as a librarian I will have to see if we have you in the Seminole State College library.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

Oh I see you are also a writer of CV books. Well as a librarian I will have to see if we have you in the Seminole State College library.

Please let me know--I will be curious to hear.

 

[libraryguy]

We do! Plenty of Blame to Go Around. With a driving tour included, no less. I like your writing style, seems quite accessible for a non-specialist like me. (ha rank amateur)