Currently Reading

I read Mr Lincoln's Army over the holidays, and have just started on Glory Road. I'm at the point where the Union troops have crossed the Rappahannock on pontoon bridges and occupied Fredericksburg, while the confederate forces occupy the high ground overlooking the town. It has been very compelling reading so far.

The entire trilogy is worth reading. Catton also completed a pair of works about U.S. Grant that are good times.

Finished Glory Road. Just starting A Stillness at Appomattox.

#4, great old classics!

About a quarter through Before Antietam: The Battle for South Mountain. A tad (OK way too much) detail on every soldier and cavalryman encountered. Indeed so much so, I am having difficulty on getting an overall image of the campaign.

I am trying for the third time to read Shelby Foote. I never could get beyond Pea Ridge, but I'm giving it another go. He's a great story teller, but as my knowledge about the Civil War has grown the last few years, I am finding more and more errors of fact and interpretation. Since he does not cite sources, I find myself guessing about where he got his information. I am coming to the suspicion that his main source is Battles and Leaders, and other reminiscences. Still, it is fast and enjoyable reading, though I have to take a lot of it with a grain of salt. He sure seems convinced he knows what everyone was thinking all the time.

Do remember that Mr. Foote has sub-titled his work, a" narrative", not "A history". I regard it as a novel, with "The South" as the hero. Consequently his work allows for deriving interior dialogue from some evidential material, and of course like the speeches in Thucydides, there's a lot of hindsight in them. I don't use it for footnotable material myself.

Good approach.

Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, by Allen C. Guelzo.

The Comanches: A History Of White's Battalion, Virginia Cavalry by Frank M. Myers (Author)...Civil War memoir, officer of the 35th.

Finished Joseph E. Johnston: A Different Valor (The Civil War Library Series); reading
Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (Modern War Studies).

A real enigmatic general.

Just discovered this the other day, in depth research job.
For Cause & for Country: A Study of the Affair At Spring Hill & the Battle of Franklin

Rereading Warren Grabau's Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign;
perhaps the best single volume study of the campaign.

Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign, by David Powell.

Grant and Sherman : The Friendship that Won the Civil War by Charles Bracelen Flood

#15; what did you think of it? ALmost bought several times.

I'm almost done. It's pretty good, actually.

#18, thanks!
I have the first two vols of his Chickamauga
trilogy which are quite good.

I have the second volume of the Chickamauga trilogy, but not the first (which is out of print and nearly unobtainable, if the prices quoted on Amazon mean anything). I'll keep my eye open for it, though.

20, wow, that was quick! Surely they'll republish.

20, Amazon has it $32 HB and $22 PB. Get a copy! ;-)

The $32.44 price is Amazon's for something that is "temporarily" out of stock. The cheapest copy that actually exists is $335.98. The paperback is not yet published.

I tried getting it directly from Savas Beatie. My order went through, but a few days later I was told that the order couldn't be honored because the book was out of stock there as well. They offered me a copy of "Maps of Chickamauga," but I already had it; I told them to refund my money. I tried Amazon again and found a copy for $75 or so, and ordered that. A day or two later, they said that they were sorry, but they, too, were out of stock (Amazon hadn't deleted the listing for it promptly enough, they said).

I'll buy the paperback if it comes out, though Savas Beatie didn't say that one was planned (maybe, despite what Amazon says, it's not). I'd prefer a hardback edition.

Gee whiz!

I just checked the Savas Beatie site and see that they are indeed planning to issue a paperback, although they don't say when. So that's what I'll be getting, unless the appearance of the paperback in the marketplace shakes the price of the hardcover down.

the secret service, the field, the dungeon, and the escape , by Albert D. Richardson. I'm mostly interested in the accounts of life in Libby, Castle Thunder, and Salisbury prisons; but there are also interesting accounts of his interactions with, and impressions of, various Union generals before he was captured.

Finished Battle of Allatoona Pass, "The Devil's to Pay": John Buford at Gettysburg; reread Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America) and Lion of the South: General Thomas C. Hindman.

The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the Battle of Ball's Bluff, June-October 1861 (American Battle Series) by Bradley M. Gottfried.

Reread the Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, a trilogy of essays in honor of Thomas Lawrence Connelly. Recommended if you're interested in that theater,

I am reading The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, the second in Gordon Rhea's four-volume series on the Overland Campaign of 1864.

reread The Battle of Glorieta Pass: A Gettysburg in the West; where we're headed in a couple of weeks!

To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, by D. Scott Hartwig.

#32, great book, can't wait until the entire set is published.

Neither can I. Do you know when the next volume is coming out?

35: the bad news from an author interview:

R: What’s next for you?

SH: Next is volume 2, which will cover the Battle of Antietam, the end of the campaign and the aftermath of Antietam, both in the battlefield area and nationally. My guess is it will take three years.

Well, that was four years ago -- if the interview occurred right after the first volume came out.

37, Let's hope! Unfortunately he works a real job and has three kids.

Confederate Crackers and Cavaliers
How did I miss this book previously? Sixteen very interesting and thought provoking essays by McWhiney.

And another excellent memoir: Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars

The announcement that Savas Beatie is putting out a paperback edition of the first volume of Powell's "Chickamauga Campaign" caused the sellers to become more reasonable. I just ordered a used/like new copy for $32.57, barely a tenth of what it would have cost me last week.

#41, great!

From Western Deserts to Carolina Swamps: A Civil War Soldier's Journals and Letters Home ...well edited set of a Union soldier's diaries & letters, from NM to NC, Val Verde to Altoona Pass. Great little book.

#15, charbonn; thanks enjoying Failure in the Saddle. Glad you recommended it.

I received the following response to my order of The Chickamauga Campaign, v. 1:

"I'm really sorry we have been unable to ship The Chickamauga Campaign - A Mad Irregular Battle.
We try really hard to supply everything as ordered but, occasionally, we are unable to locate an item within our stock or we find the item to be damaged.
We apologise for disappointing you on this occasion and hope you will give us the opportunity to be of service to you in the future.
I can confirm your account will be refunded in full (including shipping costs) if debited for this item."

Meanwhile, the prices of the other copies have gone back up to $315 and upwards.

#43 Ammianus, you are most welcome. I will be ordering Warren Grabau's "Ninety-Eight Days" at some point on the basis of your recommendation. I missed it when it first came out.

44/45: oh wow that's too bad. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and hope you get copies someday soon.

RE: 98, I think you'll be impressed with both he writing and the research. The author has some many keen insights on the weather, geography, geology, logistics and intelligence work. Just a very unique work.

Mississippi trifecta: The Battle of Brice's Crossroads, BATTLE OF OKOLONA, Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi,. These are all short monographs in the Civil War Series from the History Press.
As a former Jacksonian I was glad to see the Johnston vs Sherman Jackson volume.

This series gives the newcomer good starting points from which to investigate facets of the war.

Rereading To the Manner Born: The Life of General William H.T. Walker.

Now reading The Maps of Antietam, by Bradley M. Gottfried. I just finished To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of 1862, by D. Scott Hartwig. It is a definitive work, except that the maps are inadequate, hence my reading of The Maps of Antietam.

reread Shiloh: Confederate High Tide in the Heartland

Ninety-Eight Days: Geographers View Vicksburg Campaign, by Warren E. Grabau.

Ohio's War, the Civil War in Documents -- part of a series of anthologies about the Civil War in the Midwest that collect excerpts from various primary sources: newspaper articles, public speeches, etc. The whole series looks interesting, but I decided to start with Ohio.

51; I hope you're enjoying it!

53; Yes, I am!

After breezing through Ships of the Civil War 1861-1865: An Illustrated Guide to the Fighting Vessels of the Union and the Confederacy, by Kevin J. Daugherty, I have now turned my attention to Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

after all these decades finally purchased and am reading: Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol by William C. Davis

Battle of Monroe's Crossroads and the Civil War's Final Campaign, by Eric J. Wittenberg. Wittenberg spoke at last month's meeting of our local Civil War Round Table -- I bought the book there and had it autographed.

I've just started The Guns of Cedar Creek by Thomas A. Lewis. I've read the first 45 pages or so, and the book seems to be very well written.

The timberclads in the Civil War : the Lexington, Conestoga, and Tyler on the western waters, by Myron J. Smith.

>59 charbonn: I just looked that book up on Amazon. Cheapest print copy, $248 USD. Kindle version, $3.99 USD. Might opt for the Kindle version this time!

>60 jztemple: For what it's worth, there's a used copy for $36 and a new copy for $37 on AddALL (http://used.addall.com). But, yes, $3.99 is still less.

>61 rocketjk: Well, you learn something new every day! I never heard of AddALL, but I'll be using it now. Thanks!

Just finished Hospital on Seminary Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg by Michael A. Dreese myself!

>60 jztemple:: If I had a Kindle, that is. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer print. I wish I had known about addall, though, as my copy from Amazon set me back over 100 bucks.

I also prefer print books, but I've got an Amazon Fire for when I need a small portable tablet for internet access, and of course it's also a Kindle reader. It's come in handy for when a print version of a book is out of the question, but the Kindle version is affordable. Also I've found a number of pre-1923 books on Google Books that I've wanted to read and sometimes the e-book version works nicely on the Kindle.

I have started reading Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S. C. Gwynne.

Just finished Trails, Rails and War: The Life of General G. M. Dodge by J. R. Perkins. This book is very engagingly written but too sketchy to be a good biography. The author relied almost exclusively on Dodge's papers and correspondence and tended to ignore anything that didn't appear directly therein. And that is lots. Many gaps. Dodge's Civil War career is considered fairly briefly and spottily. The author's primary interest is in his prior and subsequent railroading projects, but even here there is a lot missing. I have not been able to find a solid biography of Dodge, and would be glad to hear of any. He is a most intriguing and inspiring figure, in both his wartime and railroading careers.

Currently reading Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles by Brian K. Burton.

A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw to the Chattahoochee, May 5-July 18, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series) by Stephen Davis (Author)

Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War, by Marc Egnal.

Just finished Hardtack & Coffee, an excellent overview of just about every aspect of the war from the enlisted man's point of view, from recruitment, to life in winter camp, to picket duty, to drawing pay and clothing, to foraging, to burying men and horses and digging latrines. John Billings gives a very thorough account, elucidated with fascinating anecdotes of his own history as an Massachusetts artilleryman in the war.

The Chickamauga Campaign - A Mad Irregular Battle: From the Crossing of Tennessee River Through the Second Day, August 22 - September 19, 1863, by David A. Powell. I was finally able to acquire a near-new copy of the hardback at a reasonable price.

#72, congrats!

Chattanooga 1863: Grant and Bragg in Central Tennessee (Campaign) by Mark Lardas.
Very effective maps.

The Chickamauga Campaign - Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, the Union Collapse, and the Defense of Horseshoe Ridge, September 20, 1863, David A. Powell's second installment of his trilogy on Chickamauga.

#75, now we just have to wait on Volume 3!

The Second Battle of Winchester : the Confederate victory that opened the door to Gettysburg, by Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus.

Tinclads in the Civil War, by Myron J. Smith.