37 History books about the American Civil War

Abraham Lincoln: The War Years encompasses volumes three to six of a six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg; these volumes focus particularly on the American Civil War period. The first two volumes, published in 1926, cover Lincoln's birth through his inauguration as president. The final four volumes were published together in 1939, and won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is a Pulitzer Prize-winning work on the American Civil War, published in 1988, by James M. McPherson. It is the sixth volume of the Oxford History of the United States series. An abridged, illustrated version of the book was published in 2003.

The Civil War: A Narrative (1958–1974) is a three volume, 2,968-page, 1.2 million-word history of the American Civil War by Shelby Foote. Although previously known as a novelist, Foote is most famous for this non-fictional narrative history. While it touches on political and social themes, the main thrust of the work is military history. The individual volumes include Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958), Fredericksburg to Meridian (1963), and Red River to Appomattox (1974).

The Collapse of Price's Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri is a 2016 book by Mark A. Lause and is the second volume in his series about Price's Raid, after Price's Lost Campaign: The 1864 Invasion of Missouri. The book, which is sourced to the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion and contemporary newspaper accounts, as well as to some secondary sources, takes up the story of Price's Raid in early October, after the goal of the campaign shifted, from being a full-scale invasion, to being a raid.

Confederate Military History is a 12-volume series of books written and/or edited by former Confederate Brigadier General Clement A. Evans that deals with specific topics related to the military personalities, places, battles, and campaigns in various Southern United States states, including those of the Confederacy.

Confederates in the Attic (1998) is a work of non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Horwitz. Horwitz explores his deep interest in the American Civil War and investigates the ties in the United States among citizens to a war that ended more than 130 years previously. He reports on attitudes on the Civil War and how it is discussed and taught, as well as attitudes about race.

The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans is a book written by Charles Royster. The book was published in 1993 by Vintage Books. The Destructive War details the lives of William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson and their respective roles in the American Civil War. Through these dual biographies, Royster explores the meaning of patriotism in the face of war and bloodshed.

Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joseph Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign is a book written by Virginia Military Institute graduate David A. Powell, and published by Savas Beatie, analyzing the failures of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Joseph Wheeler in the American Civil War. Powell draws upon firsthand accounts, many previously unpublished, to offer a detailed examination of the Southern cavalry's role in the Chickamauga campaign.

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery is a historical non-fiction book written by American historian Eric Foner. Published in 2010 by W. W. Norton & Company, the book serves as a biographical portrait of United States President Abraham Lincoln, discussing the evolution of his stance on slavery in the United States over the course of his life. The Fiery Trial, which derives its title from a State of the Union address by Lincoln, was the 22nd book written by Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. It was praised by critics and won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize.

For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War is a book by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author James M. McPherson. The book was published by Oxford University Press in 1997 and covers the lives and ideals of American Civil War soldiers from both sides of the war. Drawing from a compilation of over 25,000 letters and 250 personal diaries, For Cause and Comrades tells the story of the American Civil War's soldiers through their own uncensored point of view.

Fugitives, Smugglers, and Thieves: Piracy and Personhood in American Literature is the debut book by Mexican academic Sharada Balachandran Orihuela. It was published by University of North Carolina Press in 2018. It explores piracy and illegal trade in American literature as a form of self-representation by colonial subjects facing abjection due to exclusionary citizenship and property laws.

A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 is a book by James Ford Rhodes. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1918.The book is about the American Civil War.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the end of the Second Boer War (1902). It was started in 1937 and finally published 1956–1958, delayed several times by war and his work on other texts. The volumes have been abridged into a single-volume, concise edition.

The Jewish Confederates is a 2001 history book authored by Robert N. Rosen about Jewish citizens of the Confederate States of America who served in the Confederate States Army (CSA) during the American Civil War of 1861–1865. As they made up just 0.2% of the CSA, their story had not been heavily researched before Rosen, a Jewish lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina with a master's degree in History from Harvard University, authored the book. It received both praise and criticism in many academic journals. Rosen has written two more books about the city of Charleston.

The Journal & The 114th, 1861 to 1865 (1979) is a book that contains the history of the 114th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War and newspaper articles of the 1860s. Researched and written by John L. Satterlee, it contains stories written by the Illinois State Journal editors that were submitted by the "Observer" and others as well as many things that went on in Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois and the world during the Civil War.

The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864 is a 2015 book written by Kyle Sinisi and published by Rowman & Littlefield about Price's Missouri Expedition, an 1864 campaign of the American Civil War that failed to wrest control of the state of Missouri from the Union. Sinisi focused on the military expedition itself, but also covered political machinations that occurred during the expedition as well as topography and logistics. The Last Hurrah posits that the campaign should not be viewed as a raid due to its magnitude, that the Battle of Mine Creek had elements of a massacre, and that Missouri did not want to give up Union control. Reviewers praised the work, especially its ability to cover the campaign comprehensively while also discussing factors such as politics and the effects of guerrilla warfare.

Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is a three-volume work by Douglas Southall Freeman on the generals of the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War.

The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War is a book by Perry Miller It won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Race, Science, and Religion is a 2010 book by James Lander about the lives and views of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America written by Garry Wills and published by Simon & Schuster in 1992, won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War is a book by Todd Brewster, an American author, academic, journalist, and film producer.

The Making of Robert E. Lee by Michael Fellman is a biography of the famous Confederate general. It looks mostly at his character and beliefs. It says relatively little about the details of particular battles, though it speculates about why he may have made particular choices.

Mary Chesnut's Civil War is an annotated collection of the diaries of Mary Boykin Chesnut, an upper-class planter who lived in South Carolina during the American Civil War. The diaries were extensively annotated by historian C. Vann Woodward and published by Yale University Press in 1981. For his work on the book, Woodward was awarded the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History.

The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861–65 was a United States Government Printing Office publication consisting of six volumes, issued between 1870 and 1888 and "prepared Under the Direction of Surgeon General United States Army, Joseph K. Barnes". The History was divided into three parts, each consisting of a medical history volume and a surgical history volume. The works detail tens of thousands of surgical cases and diseases occurring during the American Civil War (1861–1865).

A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration is a Pulitzer Prize–winning book written in 2003 by Steven Hahn. The book is a history of the changing nature of African-American political power in the United States spanning six decades from around the end of the American Civil War to the Great Migration, when more than a million African Americans left the Southern United States for the Northern United States between about 1915 and 1930. It received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Bancroft Prize from Columbia University, and the Merle Curti Award in Social History from the Organization of American Historians.

Price's Lost Campaign: The 1864 Invasion of Missouri is a 2011 book written by Mark A. Lause and published by the University of Missouri Press. The book discusses the early stage of Price's Raid, especially how what was originally designed as a full-fledged invasion became known to posterity as a less-important raid. Other themes include the failings of Confederate leader Sterling Price and Union leader William S. Rosecrans and a debunking of Lost Cause myths suggesting that the Confederate soldiers refrained from total war and behaved with chivalry during the campaign. The book's coverage cuts off midway through the campaign, when Price decided not to attempt to capture Jefferson City, Missouri, which Lause views as when the campaign shifted from an invasion to a raid. Several reviewers have criticized the decision to break off coverage at that point. Other points of concern mentioned by reviewers include the lack of a bibliography, insufficient quantity and quality of maps, and copy editing errors. The book was praised for its objective treatment of the campaign and the quality of Lause's research. A sequel, The Collapse of Price's Raid, was published in 2016.

Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory is a 2001 book by the American historian David W. Blight. The book was awarded the Frederick Douglass Prize for the best book on slavery of 2001.

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War is a biography of Abraham Lincoln written by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, a professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland, in 2002. He was severely critical of Lincoln's United States presidency.

Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom is a book that tells the history of African American self-education from slavery through the Reconstruction Era. It was written by history professor Heather Andrea Williams and published in 2007 by the University of North Carolina Press.

A Separate Civil War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South is a 2006 book by Jonathan Dean Sarris that examines the internal conflicts during the American Civil War between Lumpkin and Fannin county in Georgia. Within the book, Sarris explores the factions of Unionist and Confederate sympathizers that were present from 1861 to 1865.

Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign is a 2008 book written by Peter Cozzens and published by the University of North Carolina Press. The book studies Jackson's Valley campaign, an 1862 operation during the American Civil War. Shenandoah 1862 is sourced to both primary and secondary sources, including previously unpublished primary source material. While previous works on the campaign generally focused on the Confederate perspective of the campaign, Cozzens's work also incorporates Union material. It also challenges the traditional interpretation of inept Union leadership and an outstanding performance by Confederate commander Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, although one reviewer viewed Cozzens's criticism of Jackson as too harsh. While a reviewer for the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography noted several minor errors in the work, most reviewers praised the work for its objectivity and use of primary sources, with some predicting that Shenandoah 1862 would become the go-to work about Jackson's Valley campaign. The book was also described as demonstrating revisionist tendencies.

The South's Finest: The First Missouri Brigade from Pea Ridge to Vicksburg is a 1993 book written by Philip Thomas Tucker and published by White Mane Publishing Company. The book follows the history of the First Missouri Brigade of the Confederate States Army from its formation to the end of the Siege of Vicksburg. Reviewers praised the book for its use of primary source quotations and its detailed analysis of the civilian background of the unit's members. However, it was also criticized for excessively praising the unit, for being melodramatic, and failing to provide a quantitative analysis of what made the First Missouri Brigade the "finest" brigade in the Confederacy.

A Stillness at Appomattox (1953) is a non-fiction book written by Bruce Catton. It recounts the American Civil War's final year, describing the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia during 1864 to the end of the war in 1865. It is the final volume of the Army of the Potomac trilogy that includes Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951) and Glory Road (1952).

Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War is a book combining a biography and military history of Confederate Lt. General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson's actions and results during the American Civil War. Written by British soldier and author G.F.R. Henderson, it was originally published in 1898 and became the author's most well-known work.

Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War is an economics book written by Mark Thornton and Robert Ekelund. The book, written from an Austrian School viewpoint, covers the socioeconomic situations of the American Civil War.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a 2005 book by Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, published by Simon & Schuster. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his cabinet from 1861 to 1865. Three of his Cabinet members had previously run against Lincoln in the 1860 election: Attorney General Edward Bates, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and Secretary of State William H. Seward. The book focuses on Lincoln's mostly successful attempts to reconcile conflicting personalities and political factions on the path to abolition and victory in the American Civil War.

Yankee Autumn in Acadiana (1979) is a narrative by David C. Edmonds of the invasion of south-western Louisiana by Union troops led by Major General Nathaniel Prentice Banks in October–December 1863. This was Banks' second attempt to conquer Texas after a defeat at Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863.