Civil War Books - Page 5

Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (The American Civil War)

Ulysses S. Grant

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Simplicity of character is sometimes the highest form 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Grant finished this lengthy memoir on the eve of his death from throat cancer. Impoverished at the time, the ex-President made his wife rich from the proceeds. Simple, straightforward, earnest narrative, sometimes ironic, sometimes colorful, always unpretentious. Inevitably self-justifying, but candid nonetheless.

The most memorable anecdote describes his first action in the 1861-65 war. Although he was a combat veteran of the Mexican War fourteen years earlier, he was scared, almost frozen, as he led his men against the enemy position. When he arrived, the enemy had evacuated. "The reb commander was as scared as I was. It was a lesson that served me well for the next four years."

Excellent general's-eye descriptions of the battles for Fort Donaldson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Cold Harbor. His proudest contribution to the Union victory seems to be his strategy of "coordinated attack". He believed the early rebel success was due to the fragmentation of the National fources, which allowed the outmanned rebels to concentrate on one fragment at a time.

Grant is full of forthright and fascinating judgments: he revered Lincoln and Sherman, detested Hallek, disliked Stanton but respected him.

Civil war buff? Don't neglect this.

Editorial Review:

Grant was sick and broke when he began work on his Memoirs. Driven by financial worries and a desire to provide for his wife, he wrote diligently during a year of deteriorating health. He vowed he would finish the work before he died. One week after its completion, he lay dead at the age of 63.

Publication of the Memoirs came at a time when the public was being treated to a spate of wartime reminiscences, many of them defensive in nature, seeking to refight battles or attack old enemies. Grant's penetrating and stately work reveals a nobility of spirit and an innate grasp of the important fact, which he rarely displayed in private life. He writes in his preface that he took up the task "with a sincere desire to avoid doing injustice to anyone, whether on the National or the Confederate side."

Lincoln: Speeches and Writings: Volume 2: 1859-1865 (Library of America)

Abraham Lincoln

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Leadership and Eloquence 5 out of 5 stars.
29 of 29 people found this review helpful.

This is the second volume of the Library of America Project devoted to the works of Abraham Lincoln. It covers the period after the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and includes many of the records of the Lincoln Presidency and the Civil War. The standard Lincoln materials are included, of course, such as the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Inauguaral Addresses. But there is immeasurably more. We see Lincoln writing to his Generals, Cabinet members, and other national leaders in his attempt to hold the Union together. We see a lincolns agonizing over military discipline and frequently pardoning deserting soldiers. We see Lincoln dealing with Indian issues in his day; and we see him supporting the use of black troops in the War effort. This volume is highly useful in uderstanding the Civil War. Equally important it teaches the nature of leadership and fortitude. Finally, Lincoln is one of our Nation's great prose writers and the book deserves reading for that reason alone. The Library of America is to be commended for this volume and for its ongoing series.

Editorial Review:

Lincoln measured the promise--and cost--of American freedom in lucid and extraordinarily moving prose. Here in this two volume set ("Speeches and Writings 1859-1865" and "Speeches and Writings 1832-1858"), are all the significant works, including the complete Lincoln-Douglas debates, dozens of speeches, hundreds of personal and political letters, communications to generals in the field, presidential messages and proclamations, poems, and private reflections on democracy, slavery, and the meaning of the Civil War's immense suffering.

Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J. E. B. Stuart

Jeffry D. Wert

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Cavalryman of the Lost Cause is the first major biography in decades of the famous Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart. Based on research in manuscript collections, personal memoirs and reminiscences, and regimental histories, this comprehensive volume reflects outstanding Civil War scholarship.

James Ewell Brown Stuart was the premier cavalry commander of the Confederacy. He gained a reputation for daring early in the war when he rode around the Union army in the Peninsula Campaign, providing valuable intelligence to General Robert E. Lee at the expense of Union commander George B. McClellan. Stuart has long been controversial because of his performance in the critical Gettysburg Campaign, where he was out of touch with Lee for several days; this left Lee uncertain about the size and movement of the Union army, information that would prove decisive when the battle began. In an engagement with the cavalry of Union general Philip Sheridan in spring 1864, Stuart was killed. He was only thirty-one.

Jeffry D. Wert provides new details about Stuart's childhood and youth, and he draws on letters between Stuart and his wife, Flora, to show us the man as he was: eager for glory, daring sometimes to the point of recklessness, but a devoted and loving husband and father. Stuart has long been regarded as the finest Confederate cavalryman and one of the best this country has ever produced. Wert shows how Stuart's friendship with Stonewall Jackson and his relationship with Lee were crucial; at the same time Stuart's relationships with his subordinates were complicated and sometimes troubled.

Cavalryman of the Lost Cause is a riveting biography of a towering figure of the Civil War, a fascinating and colorful work by one of our finest Civil War historians.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Penguin Classics)

Frederick Douglass

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Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Freedom through Abolitionism in th 19th Century 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

87 years after the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted and after the the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution Enslaved Americans gained thier freedom.

Before the civil war Abolitionist were the Advocates of change in America the struggle to gain ones freedom from the experiences of slavery in the south is told from the true experiences of Fredrick Douglass. From Slavery to the Struggle for freedom to escape is the story told here, but also the story of survival to activism in the Abolitionist movement to change America.

During the nearly 100 years after the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of 1787 Black America finally found Freedom, But between Slavery and Freedom was the struggle of the freedom fighters of the Revolutionary Abolitinist Movement to bring slavery in America to an end. This is the story of the virtues of a victim of Slavery turned into a revolutionary success story, This is the story of Fredrick Douglass.

Editorial Review:

Frederick Douglass was born into bondage and sold repeatedly in the slave markets of the South. Because he secretly taught himself to read and write, we possess one of the most eloquent indictments of slavery ever recorded. 2 cassettes.

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War

Thomas Dilorenzo

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Total reviews: 302 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend.
Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day.
You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.

"A devastating critique of America's most famous president."
—Joseph Sobran, commentator and nationally syndicated columnist

"Today's federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Thomas J. DiLorenzo gives an account of How this come about in The Real Lincoln."
—Walter E. Williams, from the foreword

"A peacefully negotiated secession was the best way to handle all the problems facing Americans in 1860. A war of coercion was Lincoln's creation. It sometimes takes a century or more to bring an important historical event into perspective. This study does just that and leaves the reader asking, 'Why didn't we know this before?'"
—Donald Livingston, professor of philosophy, Emory University

"Professor DiLorenzo has penetrated to the very heart and core of American history with a laser beam of fact and analysis."
—Clyde Wilson, professor of history, University of South Carolina, and editor, The John C. Calhoun Papers


From the Hardcover edition.

Abraham Lincoln : Speeches and Writings 1832-1858 (Library of America)

Abraham Lincoln, Don E. Fehrenbacher

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

#3 in my list of Libary of America books...(of 4) 4 out of 5 stars.
54 of 55 people found this review helpful.

I bought both volumns of this over the summer. I first bought Libary of America's publication of Jefferson which is a must have. Then Franklin. Those two are extremely good and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in raw historical material.

Now as for the volumes on Lincoln, don't get me wrong; they are also extremely good. As with all of these books, it is a rewarding reading experience to peruse collections of un-edited letters and speeches in their chronological order.

These volumes have every conceivable bit of correspondence imaginable. Lincoln apparently preferred the short letter, as there are several single paragraph letters to generals on the field and the like. He also wrote with simplicity and suprising bluntness. Volume 1 has a number of early speeches and famous debates which give you a sense of the lawyer turned politician. These of course are very lengthy. But also in volumes 1 and 2 there are numerous short letters which include urgent notes to General McClellan and others that would have made me quit the post had I been the receiver! In contrast there are letters revealing Lincolns more sensitive personal side.

I'm rating Lincoln's volumes just behind those of Jefferson and Franklin because there are no references detailing the circumstances for each writing. I felt a little lost not knowing what the impetus was behind the letters and correspondence. This is a departure from the Jefferson and Franklin books, which provide very detailed notes.

Finally I should say that Library of America's books are of very high quality for more than their authorship and reading content. All are bound nicely and printed on bible paper-like acid free paper. They are of exceptional quality just as books. I would say they are the best quality available.

Additionally, Library of America is a non-profit organization with the aim of distributing the work of America's essential writers without commercial gain.

Stealing Lincoln's Body

Thomas J. Craughwell

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Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

On the night of the presidential election in 1876, a gang of counterfeiters out of Chicago attempted to steal the entombed embalmed body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom. The custodian of the tomb was so shaken by the incident that he willingly dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the president's corpse.

In a lively and dramatic narrative, Thomas J. Craughwell returns to this bizarre, and largely forgotten, event with the first book to place the grave robbery in historical context. He takes us through the planning and execution of the crime and the outcome of the investigation. He describes the reactions of Mary Todd Lincoln and Robert Todd Lincoln to the theft—and the peculiar silence of a nation. He follows the unlikely tale of what happened to Lincoln's remains after the attempted robbery, and details the plan devised by the Lincoln Guard of Honor to prevent a similar abominable recurrence.

Along the way, Craughwell offers entertaining sidelights on the rise of counterfeiting in America and the establishment of the Secret Service to combat it; the prevalence of grave robberies; the art of nineteenth-century embalming; and the emergence among Irish immigrants of an ambitious middle class—and a criminal underclass.

This rousing story of hapless con men, intrepid federal agents, and ordinary Springfield citizens who honored their native son by keeping a valuable, burdensome secret for decades offers a riveting glimpse into late-nineteenth-century America, and underscores that truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction.

(20070215)

Across Five Aprils

Irene Hunt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 207 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Awfull!!! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Ever since I was force-fed this book in 6th grade I have known it as my least favorite book ever. When it came time to write a 5 paragraph persuasive essay about some of the themes in the book I instead chose to write about why the book should be torn up, burned, and hung. I got a 'D' on the essay for effort.

Maybe people who like eating children or have some other sick and twisted hobby will enjoy this book but I personally DO NOT. It took me, give-or-take 5 hours straight to get past the first couple chapters that don't have anything happen besides farming and bad grammar [eek!]

If you don't want to take my word for it though, go ahead and read this rubbish: it's your funeral! Afterwards maybe you can chew tobacco and worship Satan!

decent novel about a family split by the Civil War 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a coming of age tale for southern Illinois preteen Jethro, who's hard-working farm family is forced to face the American Civil War. Jethro's schoolteacher, brothers, and cousin (who later deserts) fight for the North while his favorite brother fights for the South. The family must face the horrors of the war from the home front while also facing the prejudices of the zealots of home. The book would be incredibly difficult for young readers because of the dialect. Also, the plot is more tell than show. But, still, a powerful human tale of a border-state family during a tragic period. Grade: B

Editorial Review:

Young Jethro Creighton grows from a boy to a man when he is left to take care of the family farm in Illinois during the difficult years of the Civil War.

Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War

Jacqueline Jones

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A panoramic portrait of the city of Savannah before, during, and after the Civil War—a poignant story of the African American freedom struggle in this prosperous southern riverport, set against a backdrop of military conflict and political turmoil. Jacqueline Jones, prizewinning author of the groundbreaking Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, has written a masterpiece of time and place, transporting readers to the boisterous streets of this fascinating city.

Drawing on military records, diaries, letters, newspapers, and memoirs, Jones brings Savannah to life in all its diversity, weaving together the stories of individual men and women, bankers and dockworkers, planters and field hands, enslaved laborers and free people of color. The book captures in vivid detail the determination of former slaves to integrate themselves into the nation’s body politic and to control their own families, workplaces, churches, and schools. She explains how white elites, forestalling democracy and equality, created novel political and economic strategies to maintain their stranglehold on the machinery of power, and often found unexpected allies in northern missionaries and military officials.

Jones brilliantly describes life in the Georgia lowcountry—what it was like to be a slave toiling in the disease-ridden rice swamps; the strivings of black entrepreneurs, slaves and free blacks alike; and the bizarre intricacies of the slave-master relationship. Here are the stories of Thomas Simms, an enslaved brickmason who escapes to Boston only to be captured by white authorities; Charles Jones Jr., the scion of a prominent planter family, who remains convinced that Savannah is invincible even as the city’s defenses fall one after the other in the winter of 1861; his mother, Mary Jones, whose journal records her horror as the only world she knows vanishes before her; Nancy Johnson, an enslaved woman who loses her family’s stores of food and precious household belongings to rampaging Union troops; Aaron A. Bradley, a fugitive slave turned attorney and provocateur who defies whites in the courtroom, on the streets, and in the rice fields; and the Reverend Tunis G. Campbell, who travels from the North to establish self-sufficient black colonies on the Georgia coast.

Deeply researched and beautifully written, Saving Savannah is a powerful account of slavery’s long reach and the way the war transformed this southern city forever.

America's Constitution: A Biography

Akhil Reed Amar

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it.

We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius.

Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president.

From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans.

We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election.

Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.