
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: 2/18/15
DOHREN (ed.): Letters from a Shoebox (2013)
Letters from a Shoebox: The Civil War Correspondence of John Huffman, David Huffman and William Bowman edited by Jim Dohren. Sunbury Press, 2013. Paper, ISBN: 978-1620062944. $14.95. Civil War historians...
Published: 2/11/15
ESCOTT: Lincoln’s Dilemma (2014)
Lincoln’s Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era by Paul D. Escott. University of Virginia Press, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-8139-3619-2. $29.95 ...
Published: 2/11/15
KING: To Raise Up a Nation (2013)
To Raise Up a Nation: John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and the Making of a Free Country by William S. King. Westholme Publishing, 2013. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1594161919. $35.00. Early in William S....
Published: 2/4/15
SPENCER (ed.): A Connecticut Yankee in Lincoln’s Cabinet (2014)
A Connecticut Yankee in Lincoln’s Cabinet: Navy Secretary Gideon Welles Chronicles the Civil War edited by J. Ronald Spencer. The Acorn Club, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-0615961033. $24.95. Few primary source...
Published: 1/28/15
COOLING: Jubal Early (2014)
Jubal Early: Robert E. Lee’s “Bad Old Man” by Benjamin Franklin Cooling III. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014. Cloth, IBSN: 978-0810889132. $38.00. “My bad old man,” as Robert E. Lee once...
Published: 1/21/15
SUMMERS: The Ordeal of the Reunion (2014)
The Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction by Mark Wahlgren Summers. University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1469617572. $40.00. Reconstruction is the unwanted orphan of...
Published: 1/14/15
MURRAY: On a Great Battlefield (2014)
On a Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013 by Jennifer M. Murray. University of Tennessee Press, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1621900535. $49.00. How many people,...
Published: 1/7/15
RAFUSE: Manassas (2014)
Manassas: A Battlefield Guide by Ethan S. Rafuse. University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-0803236431. $21.95. Ethan S. Rafuse’s Manassas: A Battlefield Guide is a latest volume in the University of Nebraska...
Published: 1/7/15
GWYNNE: Rebel Yell (2014)
Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne. Scribner, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1451673289. $35.00. Let me get right to the point: very few readers of The Civil War...
Published: 12/31/14
WILLIAMS: Prudence Crandall’s Legacy (2014)
Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education by Donald E. Williams, Jr. Wesleyan University Press, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0819574701. $35.00. Donald E....
Published: 12/31/14
WARSHAUER (ed.): Inside Connecticut and the Civil War (2014)
Inside Connecticut and the Civil War: Essays on One State’s Struggles edited by Matthew Warshauer. Wesleyan University Press, 2014. Paper, ISBN: 978-0-81957396-4. $27.95. In his brisk introduction, editor Matthew Warshauer applauds...
Published: 12/24/14
WHITE: Bushwhacking on a Grand Scale (2013)
Bushwhacking on a Grand Scale: The Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863 by William Lee White. Savas Beatie, 2013. Paper, IBSN: 978-1611211580. $12.95 The Battle of Chickamauga ranks as the second...
Published: 12/24/14
DAVIS: Music Along the Rapidan (2014)
Music Along the Rapidan: Civil War Soldiers, Music, and Community during Winter Quarters, Virginia by James A. Davis. University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0803245099. $45.00. In the course of...
Published: 12/17/14
MOORE & MOORE: Collaborators for Emancipation (2014)
Collaborators for Emancipation: Abraham Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy by William F. Moore and Jane Ann Moore. University of Illinois Press, 2014. Cloth, IBSN: 978-0252038464. $38.00. For a man with melancholic tendencies,...
Published: 12/10/14
GLEESON & LEWIS (eds.): The Civil War as Global Conflict (2014)
The Civil War as Global Conflict: Transnational Meanings of the American Civil War edited by David T. Gleeson and Simon Lewis. University of South Carolina Press, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-1611173253. $49.95....
Published: 12/3/14
MALANOWSKI: Commander Will Cushing (2014)
Commander Will Cushing: Daredevil Hero of the Civil War by Jamie Malanowski. W.W. Norton, 2014. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-393-24089-4. $26.95. William B. Cushing is no longer a household name, even among students...
Published: 12/3/14
LEIGH: Trading with the Enemy (2014)
Trading with the Enemy: The Covert Economy During the American Civil War by Philip Leigh. Westholme Publishing, 2014. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1594161995. $26.00. Philip Leigh, an independent scholar and frequent contributor to...
Published: 11/26/14
DONOHOE (ed.): The Printer’s Kiss (2014)
The Printer’s Kiss: The Life and Letters of a Civil War Newspaperman and His Family edited by Patricia A. Donohoe. Kent State University Press, 2014. Cloth, IBSN: 978-1606352168. $39.95. This oddly...