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I recently watched Ken Burns' The Civil War documentary and found it very interesting and illuminating, and want to read more about it. Shelby Foote was a very engaging speaker on the program and I see there is a massively paged trilogy of books by him at a nice price. Has anyone ever read his stuff? He seems well thought of but I wondered if there were other books out there that were either better or had newer information. I also read he doesn't mention Andersoville in it, either, which I find astonishing if true.
Any suggestions welcome. It's a huge topic that's been covered by many people so I'm finding it difficult to settle on a couple of books to start me off.
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Posted: |
Feb 14, 2016 - 4:30 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In an earlier age, Bruce Catton was considered one of the foremost writers on the Civil War. As Wikipedia summarizes it:
"In the early 1950s, Catton published three books known as the Army of the Potomac trilogy. In Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951), the first volume of his history of the Army of the Potomac, Catton covered the army's formation, the command of George B. McClellan, the Peninsula Campaign, the Northern Virginia Campaign, and the Battle of Antietam. In the second volume, Glory Road (1952), Catton covered the army's history under new commanding generals, from the Battle of Fredericksburg to the Battle of Gettysburg. In his final volume of the trilogy, A Stillness at Appomattox (1953), Catton covered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia from 1864 to the end of the war in 1865. It was his first commercially successful work and it won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and a National Book Award for Nonfiction. The three volumes were reissued as a single volume reprint titled, Bruce Catton's Civil War (1988)."
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Battle Cry of Freedom James McPherson. Best single-volume history of the Civil War.
Follow with Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.
Thanks, I will check these out!
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Battle Cry of Freedom James McPherson. Best single-volume history of the Civil War.
Follow with Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.
Thanks, I will check these out!
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Posted: |
Feb 14, 2016 - 5:22 PM
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By: |
Recordman
(Member)
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MacKinlay Kantor's "Andersonville" (1955-Historical Fiction) a Pulitzer prize winner from my youth led me on a lifetime of Civil War interest and battlefield trips (including the remnants of the real Andersonville POW camp.
For flavor of the military leaders of The South, try the 3 volume set of "Lee's Lieutenant:A Study in Command" by Douglas Southall Freeman" (1951). The late Shelby Foote's "The Civil War- A Narrative" 3 volume set(1958–1974) is a masterpiece. A brief mention of "Mary Chestnut's Civil War (Diary)" (aka "A Diary from Dixie",an exhaustive read on Southern society during wartime and the disintegration of The South.
ANY of the late Bruce Catton's books on the Civil War are must reads - his description of "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg in his book,"Glory Road"(1952) still gives me chills. :
"The smoke lifted like a rising curtain, and all of the great amphitheater lay open at last., and the Yankee soldiers could look west all the way to the belt of trees on Seminary Ridge. They were old soldiers and had been in many battles but what they saw then took their breath away, and whether they had ten minutes or seventy-five years yet to live, they remembered it until they died. There it was, for the last time in this war, perhaps for the last time anywhere. The grand pageantry and color of war in the old style, beautiful and majestic and terrible; fighting men lined up for a mile and a half from flank to flank, slashed red flags overhead, soldiers marching forward elbow to elbow, officers with drawn swords, sunlight gleaming from thousands of musket barrels, lines dressed as if for parade. Up and down the Federal firing line ran a low murmur: "There they are...There comes the infantry!"
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In an earlier age, Bruce Catton was considered one of the foremost writers on the Civil War. As Wikipedia summarizes it:
"In the early 1950s, Catton published three books known as the Army of the Potomac trilogy. In Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951), the first volume of his history of the Army of the Potomac, Catton covered the army's formation, the command of George B. McClellan, the Peninsula Campaign, the Northern Virginia Campaign, and the Battle of Antietam. In the second volume, Glory Road (1952), Catton covered the army's history under new commanding generals, from the Battle of Fredericksburg to the Battle of Gettysburg. In his final volume of the trilogy, A Stillness at Appomattox (1953), Catton covered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia from 1864 to the end of the war in 1865. It was his first commercially successful work and it won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and a National Book Award for Nonfiction. The three volumes were reissued as a single volume reprint titled, Bruce Catton's Civil War (1988)."
Thanks for the recommendation, Nob. Ill check these out.
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MacKinlay Kantor's "Andersonville" (1955-Historical Fiction) a Pulitzer prize winner from my youth led me on a lifetime of Civil War interest and battlefield trips (including the remnants of the real Andersonville POW camp.
For flavor of the military leaders of The South, try the 3 volume set of "Lee's Lieutenant:A Study in Command" by Douglas Southall Freeman" (1951). The late Shelby Foote's "The Civil War- A Narrative" 3 volume set(1958–1974) is a masterpiece. A brief mention of "Mary Chestnut's Civil War (Diary)" (aka "A Diary from Dixie",an exhaustive read on Southern society during wartime and the disintegration of The South.
Thanks Recordman. I'm going to get the Shelby Foote I think and investigate a few others. I'll check through these recommendations too. I already bought a book called Gettysburg: The Last Invasion by Allen C. Guelzo.
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