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: 4/13/16
LOWRY: Galvanized Virginians in the Indian Wars (2015)
Galvanized Virginians in the Indian Wars by Thomas Power Lowry. Idle Winter Press, 2015. Paper, ISBN: 978-0692550748. $16.99. Working from the late Major Robert E. Denney’s invaluable database of 3,710 Confederate...
Published: 4/6/16
ACKEN (ed.): Service with the Signal Corps (2015)
Service with the Signal Corps: The Civil War Memoir of Captain Louis R. Fortescue edited by J. Gregory Acken. University of Tennessee Press, 2015. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1621901259. $48.50. The U.S. Veteran...
Published: 3/30/16
DIXON: The Lost Gettysburg Address (2015)
The Lost Gettysburg Address: Charles Anderson’s Civil War Odyssey by David T. Dixon. B-List History, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0986155109. $18.95. “The world with neither long note nor remember what we say...
Published: 3/23/16
HUFFSTODT: Lincoln’s Bold Lion (2015)
Lincoln’s Bold Lion: The Life and Times of Brigadier General Martin Davis Hardin by James T. Huffstodt. Casemate Publishers, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1612003399. $32.95. In Lincoln’s Bold Lion, fellow native Illinoisan James T....
Published: 3/16/16
MESCH: Teacher of Civil War Generals (2015)
Teacher of Civil War Generals: Major General Charles Ferguson Smith, Soldier and West Point Commandant by Allen H. Mesch. McFarland, 2015. Paper, ISBN: 978-0-7864-9834-5. $39.95. Arguably, the education provided at...
Published: 3/9/16
CANAVAN: Lincoln’s Final Hours (2015)
Lincoln’s Final Hours: Conspiracy, Terror, and the Assassination of America’s Greatest President by Kathryn Canavan. University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0813166087. $29.95. Not a year goes by without several...
Published: 3/2/16
CHAMBERS: No God But Gain (2015)
No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States by Stephen Chambers. Verso Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1781688076. $27.00. ...
Published: 2/24/16
SILVERMAN: Lincoln and the Immigrant (2015)
Lincoln and the Immigrant by Jason H. Silverman. Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0809334346. $24.95. As an issue, immigration lends itself to an exegesis of Abraham Lincoln’s pronouncements...
Published: 2/17/16
ENGLE (ed.): The War Worth Fighting (2015)
The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency and Civil War America edited by Stephen D. Engle. University Press of Florida, 2015. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0813060644. $31.95. The sesquicentennial of the Civil War...
Published: 2/10/16
DOWNS & MASUR (eds.): The World the Civil War Made (2015)
The World the Civil War Made edited by Gregory P. Downs and Kate Masur. University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Paper, ISBN: 978-1469624181. $29.95. A brief review such as this...
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...