
Book Reviews
The digital home of book reviews and author interviews—and your source of the most up-to-date information on all things Civil War literature


Published: 2/3/16
ALEXANDER: Dawn of Victory (2015)
Dawn of Victory: Breakthrough at Petersburg, March 25-April 2, 1865 by Edward S. Alexander. Savas Beatie, 2015. Paper, ISBN 978-1611212808. $12.95. There have been generations of attempts to pinpoint when...
Published: 1/27/16
THOMPSON: The National Joker (2015)
The National Joker: Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Satire by Todd Nathan Thompson. Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 976-0-8093-3422-3. $29.50. Abraham Lincoln’s facility with words allowed him...
Published: 1/20/16
MILLER: Empty Sleeves (2015)
Empty Sleeves: Amputation in the Civil War South by Brian Craig Miller. University of Georgia Press, 2015. Paper, ISBN: 978-0820343327. $29.95. In the opening pages of Empty Sleeves: Amputation in the Civil...
Published: 1/13/16
BEILEIN & HULBERT (eds.): The Civil War Guerrilla (2015)
The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth edited by Joseph Beilein, Jr., and Matthew C. Hulbert. University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0813165325. $50.00....
Published: 1/6/16
CHICK: The Battle of Petersburg (2015)
The Battle of Petersburg, June 15-18, 1864 by Sean Michael Chick. Potomac Books, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1612347127. $39.95. The combat east of Petersburg, Virginia, between June 15 and 18, 1864,...
Published: 12/30/15
LEWIS: For Slavery and Union (2015)
For Slavery and Union: Benjamin Buckner and Kentucky Loyalties in the Civil War by Patrick Lewis. University of Kentucky Press, 2015. Cloth, IBSN: 978-0813160795. $50.00. Abraham Lincoln’s oft-quoted phrase that...
Published: 12/23/15
CAUDILL & ASHDOWN: Inventing Custer (2015)
Inventing Custer: The Making of An American Legend by Edward Caudill and Paul G. Ashdown. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1442251861. $40.00. In America’s popular consciousness, the name George...
Published: 12/16/15
GALLMAN: Defining Duty (2015)
Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front by J. Matthew Gallman. The University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1469620992. $45.00. “One...
Published: 12/9/15
FETTER-VORM & KELMAN: Battle Lines (2015)
Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and Ari Kelman. Hill and Wang, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-8090-9474-5. $26.00. Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and Ari Kelman’s Battle Lines is the first...
Published: 12/2/15
BERENSON: Boston and the Civil War (2014)
Boston and the Civil War: Hub of the Second Revolution by Barbara Berenson. The History Press, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-1609499495. $14.99. Boston and the Civil War: Hub of the Second Revolution is...
Published: 12/2/15
KELLER: The Story of Camp Douglas (2015)
The Story of Camp Douglas: Chicago’s Forgotten Civil War Prison by David L. Keller. The History Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-62619-911-8. $21.99. In his introduction to the 2011 edition of Ovid...
Published: 11/25/15
RYAN: Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign (2015)
Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign by Thomas J. Ryan. Savas Beatie, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1-61121-178-8. $32.95. Intelligence, or the lack thereof, may have played the single-most important...
Published: 11/18/15
HESS: The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta (2015)
The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta by Earl J. Hess. University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1469622415. $35.00. Earl J. Hess has one of the...
Published: 11/18/15
HARDY: The Capitals of the Confederacy (2015)
The Capitals of the Confederacy: A History by Michael C. Hardy. Arcadia Publishing, 2015. Paper, ISBN: 978-1626198876. $19.99. Serving as a nation’s capital city is generally a rare honor—but not in...
Published: 11/11/15
SMITH: Home Again (2014)
Home Again: A Civil War Novel by Michael Kenneth Smith. CreateSpace, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-1499157093. $13.95. A work of historical fiction set during the Civil War, Home Again follows the lives of two young...
Published: 11/11/15
RAPAPORT: Tobacco and Smoking Among the Blue and Gray (2014)
Tobacco and Smoking Among the Blue and Gray: The Illustrated History of An American Folk-Art Curiosity—The Civil War Soldier’s Tobacco Pipe by Ben Rapaport. Briar Books Press, 2014. Cloth, $65.00. The...
Published: 11/4/15
MARTELLE: The Madman and the Assassin (2015)
The Madman and the Assassin: The Strange Life of Boston Corbett, the Man Who Killed John Wilkes Booth by Scott Martelle. Chicago Review Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1613730188. $24.95 This...
Published: 10/28/15
HESTER (ed.): A Yankee Scholar in Coastal South Carolina (2015)
A Yankee Scholar in Coastal South Carolina: William Francis Allen’s Civil War Journals edited by James Robert Hester. University of South Carolina Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1611174960. $49.95. The so-called...