Almost every question about America eventually leads back to the Civil War. Politics. Race. States’ rights. Federal power. Even some arguments we’re having today started over 160 years ago.
If
you only wanted to read seven books on the Civil War, I’d recommend these as a
good starting place. Some are military history. Some focus on Lincoln or Grant.
One barely talks about battles. Together, they give you a pretty good feel for
what the war was really about.
I’m
not a historian. I just like good books. If it feels like a textbook, I’m
probably not going to finish it. Every book on this list taught me something
and kept me asking questions.
(One quick note. The links below are
Amazon Associate links. If you decide to buy one of these books, I might make a
few pennies on the sale. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, and it helps keep
this website running. Thanks for your support.)
Everybody
recommends this one, and for good reason.
McPherson
doesn’t start with Fort Sumter. He backs up and shows how both sides spent
years painting themselves into a corner. By the time the shooting starts, it’s
almost hard to imagine it not happening.
One
thing I hadn’t really thought about before reading this was how little anybody
knew. Lincoln was figuring it out. Davis was figuring it out. The generals were
learning on the fly. We look back, knowing how it ends. They didn’t have that
luxury.
If
you’re only going to read one Civil War book, I’d start here.
Bruce
Catton flat-out knows how to tell a story.
The
battles are in here, but that’s not what stuck with me. It was the soldiers.
These guys marched hundreds of miles, slept in the mud, got soaked in the rain,
fought all day, then got up and did it again the next day.
After
a while, you quit thinking about the big names and start wondering how any of
these guys survived.
If
you like his style, Bruce Catton has written a score of books on Grant and the
Civil War.
I
never would’ve picked this book up on my own.
It’s
about death.
Not
who won the battles. Not the strategy. What happened after somebody got killed.
How did families find out? How did they identify the bodies? What happened when
they couldn’t?
It
sounds depressing. Parts of it are, but it’s one of those books that makes you
look at the war differently.
Abraham
Lincoln had the patience of a saint.
Half
the guys in his cabinet thought they should’ve been president instead of him.
Most presidents would’ve shown them the door. Lincoln kept them around and
somehow made it work.
What
surprised me was how often Lincoln waited. Everybody wanted him to decide
immediately. Most of the time he didn’t.
Shelby
Foote could’ve told me the history of drywall and I’d probably keep reading.
He
isn’t in a hurry. He lets the story unfold piece by piece.
There
were a bunch of times I’d finish a chapter and realize I’d just read forty
pages without even noticing.
Some
historians write history. Foote tells stories.
This
one was just fun.
Horwitz
drives around meeting re-enactors, collectors, historians, and people who are
still arguing about the Civil War like Appomattox happened last week.
Some
people he talks with are a little nuts. Some are incredibly smart. Most are
somewhere in between.
It
reminded me that history isn’t just something sitting on a shelf. People are
still fighting over what happened 160 years later.
Grant
writes like you’d expect him to.
No
drama. No chest pounding. No, “Look how smart I was.”
He
just tells you what happened. He wasn’t settling scores. He was recording
history.
No
wonder Mark Twain wanted to publish this one.
If
you can only choose two books from this list, I’d go with Grant’s memoirs and
McPherson’s, The Battle Cry of Freedom. If you want to know what the war was
like for the soldiers on the ground, read any book by Bruce Catton.
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