Stephen A. Swails, Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction By Gordon C. Rhea (LSU Press, forthcoming November 2021) Gordon Rhea will be leading the BGES tour “The 1864 Overland Campaign Part 1: Grant versus Lee,” on October 18-23, 2021. There are two related videos on BGES YouTube channels that are worth a … Read more
Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that Changed the Course of the Civil War, June 23–July 4, 1863 David A. Powell and Erc J. Wittenburg (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001) David Powell continues a relentless publication schedule that has established him as the “go-to” guy for all things Middle Tennessee and Northern Georgia—not to mention, his recent … Read more
Hope & Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment Edited by Martin Blatt, Thomas J. Brown, and Donald Yacovone, foreword by Gen. Colin Powell (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001) They were not the first, but they were arguably the most famous black regiment in United States military history. The 54th Massachusetts Infantry … Read more
Travels to Hallowed Ground: A Historian’s Journey to the American Civil War By Emory M. Thomas (University of South Carolina Press, 1987) Emory Thomas is one of the most revered of academic Civil War historians, and so it is with regret that I rate his musings so low. In fairness, as with all such books … Read more
Rebel Victory at Vicksburg By Edwin Bearss (Pioneer Press, 1963) The legend outlives the man and our memories of Ed Bearss long overshadowed our objectivity, and so picking up a book written before Ed became a legend is both daunting and filled with land mines. What if he was all bluster, a showman who was … Read more
Dee Brown’s Civil War Anthology By Dee Brown, edited by Stan Banah (Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, 1998) Like many of you, the name Dee Brown is somewhat familiar to me. If you collect books, you have seen many of his books in a reprint edition by Konecky Press or some other secondary publisher, oftentimes … Read more
The Civil War By Robert Paul Jordan (National Geographic Society, 1969) It has been said a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is so, then Robert Jordan’s book is War and Peace. It was written as a survey reflection on the Civil War amid a country torn apart by antiwar riots, political discourse that … Read more
River of Death, The Chickamauga Campaign By William Glenn Robertson (UNC Press, 2018, Volume 1, The Fall of Chattanooga), $30.97 Nearly 30 years ago I met Glenn Robertson on a tour with the new American Blue and Gray Association of Shiloh. He was accompanied by one of his active duty tour assistants, Lt. Col. Ed … Read more
The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grierson’s Epic 1863 Civil War Raid Through Mississippi By Timothy Smith (Savas Beatie, 2018 HB, 2020 SB), $19.95 There is perhaps no Civil War operation that is better known but which no one knows anything about than Grierson’s 1863 raid through Mississippi in April–May 1863. Made legendary by John Wayne’s popular … Read more
Besieged, Mobile 1865 by Russell W. Blount, Jr. (Pelican Press, 2015), $26.95 In 1861, Union commanding general Winfield Scott articulated the Anaconda Plan, a strategy that would defeat the nascent Confederacy by closing down all its lines of commerce, thereby depriving it of a commercial base. Closing ports of trade would deny … Read more
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