Blue and Gray Education Society

Sam Richards’s Civil War Diary: A Chronicle of the Atlanta Home Front

January 15, 2012March 8, 2010 by Len Riedel

This is not Mary Chesnut’s Diary from Dixie or John Jones’ A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary. It is however an honest representation of life in Atlanta and the environment around there during the war. The reader will be better informed and empathetic for the effort.

Lincoln in the Times

January 15, 2012February 12, 2010 by Len Riedel

The Life of Abraham Lincoln as originally reported in the New York Times

[box]Edited by David H. Donald and Harold Holzer
St. Martin’s Press, 2005[/box]

I was given this book by Vicki and Jerry Spier following my heart surgery in 2008. I just finished reading it and found myself wishing that I had picked it up as soon as I received it. While there are no shortage of monographs on Abraham Lincoln in and around his Bi-centennial commemoration this book was refreshingly simple and informative. Indeed with so much analysis of Lincoln filling the bookshelves it was a relief to look at Lincoln in the context of his actual life.

Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign

January 15, 2012February 11, 2010 by Len Riedel

This book is noteworthy for its straight forward and readable prose. Few people understand the Trans-Mississippi and admittedly it is better understood if you have walked the fields. Shea has done that and I have been privileged enough to walk with him and to see him in action presenting this as a two day tour. That insight made this book an indispensable and easily understood narrative.

Undaunted Heart: The True Story of a Southern Belle and a Yankee General

January 15, 2012December 14, 2009 by Len Riedel

This book accomplishes its primary purpose of sharing the evidence of this important 19th century relationship. It could have been much more. As a general read I can recommend it; however, as a useful historical resource it is clearly wanting.