Does anyone have recommendations for a good book to read about the Civil War? Here are my criteria:
It should be written by a serious historian. (But it doesn't have to be academic -- if you think The Civil War for Dummies or The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Civil War are good, feel free to recommend them.)
It should be short, say under 500 pages. (This rules out, say, Shelby Foote's three-volume work or McPherson's 950-page Battle Cry of Freedom, no matter how good they are.)
It should be a general history, not focused on one particular issue like Goodwin's Team of Rivals, a naval history, a photographic history, a history of the Civil War as it relates to Texas, etc.
It should tell a historical narrative, as opposed to, say, a reference guide, 101 trivia facts about the Civil War, or the like.
It should be about the U.S. Civil War!
It should cover both the political and military history of the Civil War.
It should have good coverage of the runup to the Civil War, and preferably should also have good coverage of Reconstruction.
It should be non-fiction, not a novel or alternative ("what-if") history.
Well, I think that covers it. If you recommend a book, please note whether you think it has a slant of some sort (e.g., pro-Southern, pro-Lincoln, whatever). (Bias is no problem, and I don't even mean the word in a negative sense, but it's good to know!) If there's something good that doesn't fit all the categories (e.g., "great book but no coverage of Reconstruction," or "the best book hands down but unfortunately 600 pages long," or "actually about the Spanish Civil War"), feel free to note that too. Thanks!
It's been a while, but I believe it ends with the war itself.
Or else get a version that is printed in very tiny type.
For the prelude to the war, I suggest William Freehling's The Road to Disunion (Vol. 2): Secessionists Triumphant 1854-1861.
I doubt there are any good general histories of the Civil War per se which include Reconstruction. The two are found together in the same book only in general histories of America overall in that period, and there aren't many of those. Note that Battle Cry of Freedom is a general history but omits Reconstruction.
Authoritative and exhaustive is an understatement.
Commenters have short attention spans, I think... (1) read post title; (2) comment
It is, however, a set that you will have to read more than once to get a complete understanding of the war.
Shelby Foote is for buffs only. I trudged through it all, just because, but it focuses on minutia: Then Lee sent Jackson to turn Hooker's right, and the Union brigade commander set the men in the wrong formation, but there was a thunderstorm, so the attack couldn't be pressed before sundown, and ... Sprinkled throughout are charming little anecdotes of the sort that he told in the Burns film.
McPherson ups the altitude to view it all from ten thousand feet. I don't think it possible to meet all of your criteria and still come in at 500 pages.
The list begins and ends with Shelby Foote.
It is THE definitive history book on the Civil War, and one of the best on any topic. Don't even think about picking up anything else until you've read Foote's amazing anthology.
The best short work on the political/constitutional issues involved is Lincoln's Constitution by Daniel Farber, which is also one of the best books on constitutional law ever written, I think. Brilliantly done. Also good is McGinnis's new book Lincoln And The Supreme Court (check out my review forthcoming in California Lawyer). I recommend against Simon's Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney, which has little that's new or useful.
1. As Steve Lubet says, William Freehling's The Road to Disunion is the best for the lead in. The first volume is better than the second, but both are good.
You can, btw, get a pretty good sense of the the period from 1854-61 just by reading a collection of Lincoln's speeches. The American Library has a two volume collection which includes the entire Lincoln-Douglas debates. Since even the best authors can hardly compare with Lincoln, you might give that some thought, though obviously you miss a lot of modern scholarship by that approach.
2. Like so many others, there's no substitute for MacPherson on the war in its entirety. It isn't close.
3. For Reconstruction, the best is Eric Foner's work of the same name.
IMO, any study of history requires a framework to start with, a primer, an armature.
Otherwise, you could lose yourself in a thousand pages about Confederate cavalry tactics and never know what it all meant.
Also, an excellent treatment is at hand in Fletcher Pratt's
"A Short History of the Civil War: Ordeal by Fire" Pratt wrote it in 1935, and it still garners praise as one of the best ever short histories of that war. The prose is vividly readable, and Pratt illuminates issues such as why the Union officer corps improved dramatically over the course of the war, while that of the Confederacy declined. (Merit vs. Aristocratic privilege) A must read, and under 500 pages.
I also read on a blog somewhere that Battle Cry of Freedom is great.
With your criteria in mind, you can't do better than reading the two books from the Harlan-Davidson American History series. John Niven's Coming of the Civil War (0-88295-861-5); and Brook Simpson's "America's Civil War" (0-88295-929-8).
The two together run about 400 pages (combined), and give you the historiography to a greater extent than other comparable books. You may not be overly interested in this, but at least this series lets you know where you will find the landmines.
As much as I hate to give the self-satisfied jack-a** the publicity, the book to read on Reconstruction is still Foner's. His "Short History" probably fits your criteria.
I proposed "Homage to Catalonia". The list has since been purged by successive interim-chairs and a new dean. Guess which book is the ONLY one left?
It addresses the horrible choice much of the world faced in the 20th Century: What do I choose to do when confronted with MULTIPLE totalitarian threats? AND it is a very nice counterwieght to those academics who say that "objectivity" is an empty concept. If there is no "objectivity," we can nevertheless conclude from "Homage", I hope, that "intellectual integrity" is a valid approach.
1. Hummel is both an economist and a historian, so he gets the economics of the Civil War right.
2. Hummel is a libertarian, so he doesn't fall for the natural nationalistic biases of most historians.
3. Hummel distinguishes the issues of why the South seceded from why the North refused to allow them to peacefully secede.
4. Hummel's book has been widely reviewed by major historians in the field, all wildly positive.
5. Hummel is an excellent and compelling writer.
6. Each of Hummel's chapters contains an academic appendix. So those that just want the substance without the documentation can skip the appendices, while those interested in the details of scholarship can spend hours marveling at the detailed cites and erudite discussions of various Civil War issues that command the attentions of historians and economists.
what the hell, I'll plunge on in as soon as I finish Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy. The one should lead nicely into the other.
BTW, Rise is fascinating. I consider myself fairly well read, and I had no idea that Martin Van Buren was such an interesting fellow.
Just an observation.
Good going! This violates the first, second, fifth, and eighth criteria set forth in the initial post.
I vote for North Against South: The American Iliad 1848-1877, by Ludwell H. Johnson (Professor Emeritus of History at the College of William and Mary). It's a little over 300 pages.
Witness is correct. The one book which comes closest to meeting all your criteria, i.e., includes Reconstruction as well as the Civil War and events leading up to it. is James McPherson's Ordeal by Fire. The problem is that Ordeal by Fire is 816 pages long.
Of the single-volume histories of the Civil War alone mentioned in this thread, only Charles P. Roland's 312-pages An American Illiad is under 500 pages.
I recommend you go with Ordeal by Fire.
Hoosier and I both suggested Eric Foner's Reconstruction.
You may want to try "The Civil War." It is the companion text to Ken Burns' series. I believe it was written by Geoffrey Ward. It's illustrated and about 3-400 pages long. The photos are great and it has several of the battlefield maps that I love.
anything else?
I found Weigley's book disappointing - at best mediocre, and not at all up to his usual standards.
It should make a damn fine mint julep.
Sorry to hijack, but can anyone recommend a similarly good book on the War of 1812? The anniversary is coming up, and it's one of those neglected wars. I've read short accounts. It's funny -- the Brits and Canadians say they won the war, the Americans say they won the war, and many people in between say no one won anything. The one thing they can agree on is that the Indians lost, big time.
Battle Cry, at least: but it seemed to me that it was much shorter than that! It was so well written. Anything by Catton I view with warm affection. His Illustrated History fo the Civil War, pub'd by American Heritage, is absolutey wonderful. Foote is also outstanding.
Pratt is an unjustly forgotten author, a superb writer who also produced a wonderful volume on cryptography, Secret &Urgent, as well as those delightful Incomplete Enchanter novels with another erudite soul, L.Sprague de Camp.
Any of you taking these suggestions who is not already an avid ACW reader should turn back now. It will consume your life if you scratch just below the surface. There are 800 page books out there (and great ones, too) just dealing with a single day of battle. And I would second the advice to solicit wargamers. Try www.consimworld.com.
I'm afraid he doesn't do much with the gay-angle, however.
I so wished after all was said and done that I had used MacPherson. I used Ken Burns as the basis for the war portion ("We watch videos! Take my class!"), but made the rookie mistake of trying to use the Burns/Ward/Burns reader's companion to the series for the actual reading portion. Bite the bullet and do the extra reading!
Love him or hate him, for Reconstruction it's Foner.
And in imputing there was even a viable option to let the treason procede without an attempt to stop it, Hummel fails the bias test.
Yours, TDP, ml msl, &pfpp
Jeff Hummel's book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War
Well, geez. Few books are perfect, afterall....
Also, Foner's "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War" gives a great overview of the ideological underpinnings of the Civil War.
It's geared towards college undergraduates, but it provides a good political, social, and military overview, and spans the disintegration of the Whigs through the "Lost Cause." Bias: Not a fan of the "Lost Cause" literature. I also like that it gives attention to Grant and Sherman (and gives a balanced treatment of the latter), as the trend in Civil War historiography is to put more of an emphasis on social and economic factors. It's also 432 pages, just below your cap!
Is it unbiased? Less so than you might think. Written while Mr. Grant was dying of throat cancer, it has a natural haste. Originally published by Mark Twain.
It is still the best single primary source on the Great Rebellion.
As Grant noted, over 50 regiments which fought for the Union were raised in the South. 1/3rd of the Union Army was African Americans, despite the special danger to them from the so called "Confederates" who did not treat them in accordance with the agreed prisoner of war cartel. More came from overseas to fight for the Union, most famously the Irish, but also many from Germany.
There's also this paperback version, which probably lacks many of the illustrations in the above version.
I also consider Ralph Korngold's biography of Thaddeus Stevens is valuable, too. Nobody does a better job explaining where the radical republicans were coming from, and he talks about events that most historians leave out, such as how both Tennesee and Virginia didn't secede so much as were abducted out of the union by bogus votes. Lincoln talked about it in one of his addresses, but most historians don't see any value in mentioning it, even though this is why Andrew Johnson refused to join the senatorial walk-out, and why West Virginia seceded from Virginia (an act for which apparently they will never be forgiven). And the reason why it is not mentioned is obvious: because it exposes that the South didn't really believe in state's rights. Given that the South supported every state's right and every federal power that supported slavery, and opposed every assertion of state right or federal power that opposed it, you have to conclude that for the south this is not about state or federal power, but slavery.
You see, here is the fundamental reality you have to deal with, when understanding the civil war. People love to say passionately that history is written by the victors, but bluntly that is not true in a country where there is free speech. the vanquished and their sympathizers can put out their version too. And today, which part of the country cares the most about the civil war? the south. so who is the target audience for such books. Southerners, who would like to think that their ancestors didn't fight and die for something as manifestly evil as slavery. (I say this as a Southerner myself.) And in a funny way, it is a sign of how far we have come in the south that so many of us are willing to believe in this fairy tale that they were fighting for state's rights, because part of the reason why it is so easy to believe is it is so hard to believe anyone would fight and die to keep another person in chains.
But the ugly truth is they did. Even if they didn't own slaves, they did. why? because to even the non-slave-holding southerners slavery did for them what prison does for us, on some level. Now I am not saying that prison is literally evil like slavery; given that the vast majority of prisoners deserve prison, but slavery had nothing to do with whether anyone "deserved" to be treated this way (the 13th Amendment presupposes that some people deserve at least involuntary servitude). But like prison does to us, slavery was seen as a system for controlling a dangerous group of people. The average southerner believed that if freed, slaves would go on a rampage of murder and rape unlike any seen. And the positive thing you can get out of that is that the modern southerner is so far removed from that kind of thinking that they have trouble even recognizing it as a motivation. And so just as in our modern society we all support our tax dollars going to prison even though we don’t plan to use the accommodations, the white southerner, circa 1860, supported slavery even if he or she didn’t have slaves.
All of which is to say that the Northerners didn’t fight solely altruistically to free the slaves. To say slavery was the issue for the North is shorthand for a large array of complicated feelings on the subject. The short version is that white Northerners came to believe that if slavery was not stopped, their own freedom would be threatened.
Try to find a copy (probably out of print now?) of the late Prof. Rowena Reed, "Combined Operations in the Civil War." She was one of the first to explore how the Civil War really was a forerunner of modern warfare and some of the 'strategery' foreshadowed 20th century political and military developments...
Surely there is some other alternative? Maybe I'm guilty of a poisoned-well fallacy here, but surely there is a decent history of Reconstruction by a non-Marxist?
(Actually, this is a good series and the West Point Atlases are good supplements for any war for which they exist)
American Heritage also has a good atlas, Battle Maps of the Civil War. I contains many of the West Point maps and others besides.
I'll second this recommendation as a means of making a larger point -- that the Civil War itself is somewhat like a small piece of the Bayeux Tapestry. It's not possible to isolate a few threads and say "there, just look at that and you'll understand the whole thing". Understanding that War requires not just the lead up to it, and not just Reconstruction, but the whole history of race and federal v. state power in the US, from the introduction of the first slaves to the present. All the threads connect together. I personally think it's a fascinating story, covered in lots of extremely well-written books, and worth far more than a few weeks reading.
RE: A Good Civil War Book
Darn near ANYTHING by Bruce Catton.
If you want it mostly from the socio-economic-politcal perspective I recommend his centennial trilogy. The battles are almost anecdotal with respect to the politics inside the Army of the Potomac and the various other Federal armies.
His other single volume efforts deal more with the battles, logistics, tactics, etc.
I binged on them last year. And in the process, learned so much more about the inter-action of politics and social issues of the era.
It's amazing how much the Democrats wanted to maintain slavery. And, what is even MORE stunning, is how they do it today. Instead of chains and whips, it's shoddy education and welfare.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Battle Cry is the historical book I'd recommend.
From one of the Amazon customer reviews (with spelling corrections):
"Fletcher Pratt could spend a paragraph or two on that [muddy] campaign, and when done you'll notice your legs hurt. Why? Because you didn't want to get mud on your couch."
I read this book to my daughter when she was nine; she is currently a graduate student in military history.
The next book should be Hummel's.
My recommendations (with limitations, qualifications and comments in brackets):
Duke, Basil Wilson, A History of Morgan's Cavalry. Cincinnati, Ohio: Miami Printing and Pub. Co., 1867. [Available on-line at www.kyvl.org/kentuckiana/ This work was written by one of the participants, not long after the Civil War, so that memories were still fresh and subject to challenge by other participants. Duke was a lawyer from St. Louis who traveled to Kentucky to join the CSA. He was also BGen John Hunt Morgan's brother-in-law, second in command (until Morgan was killed, and then unit commander). Several of Morgan's raids were directed at destroying the tracks, trains and rolling stock of the Louisville &Nashville R.R. - causing $Millions of damages. After the Civil War, Duke became General Counsel for the L &N R.R.]
Horwitz, Lester V., The Longest Raid of the Civil War. Cincinnati, Ohio: Farmcourt Publishing, Inc., 1999. [The "Long Raid" by Morgan is the longest cavalry raid in US history — across Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio to the W. Va. border — some of Morgan's men managed to escape and work their way back to the C.S.A. Morgan and Duke were captured and imprisoned in the Ohio State pen, from which they escaped and returned to the C.S.A., to re-organize their unit and begin, again, taking action against Union forces in Tennessee and Kentucky. Horwitz is an amateur historian, but did a professional job in researching and writing this very readable book about events that are now, unfortunately, largely forgotten]
Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan, by James A. Ramage. [Unfortunately, Ramage engaged in "Psychohistory" — psycho-babble — by trying to analyze a mid-19th Century Southern Gentleman from a late-20th century perspective. The book does, however, contain many details about Morgan's pre-Civil War life and family history, which makes the book worth reading. However, the book is also a clear lesson in the dangers of an author making his/her opinions the starting point, and failing to understand historical figures in the context of their times and cultures. IMO, Morgan was a living Rhett Butler, with all the faults and strengths of character that implies. However, if you want to understand that, Ramage supplies the facts – just ignore his psycho-babble analysis.]
The Raiders of 1862, by James D. Brewer [Best work of its kind and very short and readable. Brewer, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army (ret), is a former editor of Armor Magazine and understands cavalry tactics. He covers 3 raids, and compares and contrasts them and their effectiveness. Armstrong's raid into Northern Mississippi in Sept. 1862 — and this may be the only work that does that — Forrest's Western Tennessee Raid in Dec. 1862 - Jan. 1863, and Morgan's Christmas Raid into Kentucky in Dec. 1862 - Jan. 1863. I only wish he had covered “Buck” Van Dorn’s Holly Springs Mississippi raid in Dec. 1862 – Jan. 1863, too, but, Brewer told me that Van Dorn is adequately covered elsewhere. The effects of Morgan and Forrest (and Van Dorn) raids were to completely disrupt supply lines to the Union Armies in Western and Central Tennessee. The ultimate effects were much greater. Grant (and Sherman) learned that they could live off the land – which Grant used to complete the taking of the Mississippi Valley and Sherman used in his March to the Sea. Rosecrans decided that he needed to spread more of his forces protecting his river and railroad supply lines. Morgan’s raid cut Rosecrans’s railroad (the L &N R.R.) for 3 months (Rosecrans detailed over half of his 95,000 Soldiers to rebuilding the railroad and for guard duty, while after Stone’s River, Bragg’s Army was reduced to less than 30,000 Soldiers), so that Rosecrans did not thereafter follow-up on the Battle of Stone’s River to try to achieve a decisive strategic victory over Bragg, and also Rosecrans failed to aggressively press on to Chattanooga. Rosecrans’s strategy had been to capture Tullhoma, TN, and move on Chattanooga. Rosecrans did not move on Bragg at Tullhoma for 6 months. Thus, Morgan’s Christmas Raid can be viewed as resulting in a strategic victory for the C.S.A.
Another apparent effect was that after Morgan returned from the Christmas Raid, finding that so many friends from Kentucky had been killed or wounded in the Battle of Stone’s River, along with the useless and suicidal attack on the Union left flank by the Kentucky “Orphan Brigade, that he developed complete contempt for Bragg. This was likely was a major factor in Morgan’s direct disobedience of Bragg’s orders so that Morgan crossed into Indiana for the Long Raid.
Further research leads to finding that in December of 1862, Jefferson Davis was making a tour of the Western Theater. He announced his intentions in various speeches, so that the strategy was accurately reported in the Chicago Tribune on December 17, 1862. In the context of this, Van Dorn’s raid was a complete surprise – Davis had relieved Van Dorn of command, and the Holly Springs Raid was an impromptu affair thought up by some of his friends and sold to Van Dorn’s replacement, Pemberton. Pemberton was both worried about Grant, and didn’t know what to do with a fellow Major General (Van Dorn) who out-ranked him based on date of rank, but who had earned Jefferson Davis’ enmity. One of the enduring mysteries is whether Julia Grant and some of U.S. Grant’s children were captured by Van Dorn in Holly Springs. Van Dorn placed a strong guard around one house and no one could enter it without his personal permission, and he refused to answer questions about that. Grant does not mention this in his Memoirs , but dealt with the Union Commander of Holly Springs very harshly, although he’d gone out of his way to protect that officer previously.
As a lawyer, my favorite part of The Raiders of 1862 is involves the Battle during the Christmas Raid between Morgan and Union Colonel John Marshall Harlan (later U.S. Supreme Court Justice, aka “The Great Dissenter”, who had been a slave owner, and was the first Justice to argue that the 14th Amendment incorporated the Bill of Rights and made them apply to the states. His dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson should be required reading in any Constitutional Law class). Harlan’s Brigade was the only one to catch Morgan. The Battle began just as a Court-Martial was concluding. BGen Morgan had accused one of his Lt. Colonels of disobeying his orders concerning the conditions of parole of Union prisoners. Colonel Duke, Morgan’s brother-in-law, presided. The Court-Martial had just concluded – with an acquittal (how’s that for due process?) – when Harlan’s artillery opened up. Duke was one of the few casualties, receiving a head wound. Everyone thought Duke was dead, but his body was thrown over a horse and lead across the river. Duke recovered shortly thereafter and helped lead the unit through a perilous escape back to Tennessee to rejoin Bragg’s Army]
That Devil Forrest: Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, by John A. Wyeth [While too long to meet your criteria, it is the definitive biography of Forrest. Wyeth rode with Morgan on the Christmas Raid as part of Morgan’s Scout Company, and is mentioned in Brewer’s book. However, Wyeth was too young to enlist in the C.S.A. After the Civil War, Wyeth became a physician. A patient died, leading Wyeth to conclude that the death was due to his mal-practice due to inadequate training. He went to Europe and studied medicine. Upon his return, his efforts lead to the establishment of a standardized 4-year medical school curriculum in the U.S. as a doctorate degree to be completed after completion of college. His reputation was such that he was called to the UK to attend Queen Victoria. Many places in Europe and elsewhere, a medical degree is a Bachelors Degree program. Wyeth is the father of modern medicine in the U.S.]
Wyeth was also a poet:
[IMO the most important battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Perryville, KY. Lincoln remarked “I’d like God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.” Perryville marked the defeat of C.S.A. efforts to take Kentucky – had that occurred, it is likely that families with Southern ties living in southern Indiana and Ohio would have either pushed for secession or, at least, cut the flow of supplies from the West, which were essential to the Union in the East. It quite possibly could have cut the Union in two. Further, securing Kentucky meant that the Mississippi Valley, and central and then western Tennessee (and Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia) were open for invasion.]
Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Perryville, 8 October 1862, by Dr. Robert S. Cameron, Ph.D., US Army Armor Center, Ft. Knox, KY, Combat Studies Institute Press, Ft. Leavenworth, KS. [Available on-line. The reenactment at Perryville each fall is the 2d largest in the U.S. – Gettysburg is the only larger one. Dr. Cameron is the Army Historian at Ft. Knox, and his Staff Ride Handbook is essential to understanding the battle – including the effects of optical illusions, smoke, terrain, noise and general confusion on the course of the Battle. Dr. Cameron has done other works, and presentations, covering the entirety of the 1862 Kentucky campaign. This book is essential for any tour of Perryville, and if you have a chance to meet Dr. Cameron, you will value the experience.]
Prose Sketches and Poems, Written in the Western Country (1834), by Albert Pike. [Pike largely fell into disrepute due to his involvement in the Civil War. However, before then this was considered to be only 2d in importance to the Lewis &Clark journals in motivating the westward expansion of the U.S. His descriptions of the Southwest are outstanding, and probably the best in describing so much of the nation before its settlement.]
[I am, perhaps, something of a Civil War nut-job – of whom there are many. Although I do not subscribe to the “Great Man” theory of history, I do enjoy reading about the larger than life characters who populate 19th century U.S. history. History is much more than facts and dates. The outsized egos, ambitions, jealousies, pettiness, rivalries, intelligence and nobility – not infrequently displayed by the same person – turns history into an exciting pastime. Whenever possible, I like to read works by the participants. Sometimes they disclose what they were thinking. Other times they are rationalizing. Either approach gives insight. I hope you will find my suggestions worth your time to read.]
MacPherson and Foote are good ... for n00bs. But Pratt, they ain't. Bruce Catton never set my pants on fire, for some reason. Of course Sherman's and Grant's memoirs are spectacular. And see Liddel-Hart's intro to one of the reprints of the first edition of Sherman.
Pratt's <i>The Heroic Years</i> is killer on the period leading up to the War of 1812. In fact, I'd say it's the best single history book I've read by any author on any period. The man could really swing a pen. Somebody's even put it online. <i>Heroic Years</i> starts with Jefferson's presidential election and ends with the Battle of New Orleans. For the naval war, Alfred Mahan's old 2-volume work is excellent, albeit shockingly (by today's standards) verbose.
That said, for something far simpler and much shorter, I strongly recommend The Civil War: A History by Harry Hansen. It says it's about 672 pages, but those are big-print paperback pages. It's not as thorough as McPherson (still the best single volume), but it has a bit more focus on military operations (you know, that whole "War" part of "Civil War").
Anyway, that's an easy one to check out.
I've read Foote three times and I frequently grab a volume from the shelf, open it at random, and read a few pages. The Civil War is America's epic and Foote our Homer.
"Nevermind is America's epic, and Cobain our Homer."
Also sprach Hoosier
Mr. Mandias: My advisor in college claimed to have read the entire Gibbon one summer when he was an undergrad. I am not going to call him a liar. But, if true, this seems like a waste of a perfectly good summer.
I dunno. But there was BIG battle in New Orleans. So clearly SOMETHING was going on.
Longer, but worthwhile are US Grant's memoirs. Grant has the reputation of a buffoon, but his memoirs are wonderful - he and Churchill both write prose that is worth reading for the sheer artistry, in addition to the content.
Hey now. I happen to love Gibbon. But it did take me longer than a summer to read him because I was working and (unlike you privileged academics) didn't get my summers off.
Books are pleasurable. A good summer is one spent in the supernal peace of a green campus in summer, reading the best books by the side of the campus lake.
I actually can read. And do so from time to time.
Not always by water. But still . . .
Kudos for your post above. You should write a Civil War book yourself about those [generally unknown] cavalry raids. I'd buy it.
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