Santa was good to my Civil War library, bringing some long-requested items. The two lightest (in weight) went with me on my travels to warmer climes (California Bay Area) to visit family. Northwestern Oregon may have a relatively mild climate, but Sonoma averages 20 degrees warmer! I'd move if I could afford to live there!
Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic. Finished. Helped me understand, although still not agree with, some of the pro-Confederate posts here. Lots of humor, too--I got a real charge out of the perhaps-too-realistic reenactors!
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. I'm about 2/3 of the way through. Equally as fascinating as her earlier Mothers of Invention.
Now for the heavier (in actual weight) and not-yet-read:
Water Lowenfels, ed., Walt Whitman's Civil War.
Noah Andre Trudeau, Lincoln 's Greatest Journey: Sixteen Days That Changed a Presidency, March 24-April 8. 1865.
David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. I would have started my reading with this one, but it is far too weighty for an old lady marching through airports!
When done with these, I may go back and try to finish Charles Calhoun's The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. I bogged down about 1/4 of the way through. I may just wait for Brooks Simpson to finish his long-awaited second volume, hoping it will appear before I check out of this world.