Why am I passionate about this?

I am an author, editor, and former history teacher and curriculum writer with a special interest in Southern history, particularly the Confederate era. I have written and published two books on lesser-known aspects of the Confederacy, the civilian government (Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries), and religious work in the Confederate armies (Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies). I taught on various levels, from junior high through college, and have B.S. and M.S. degrees with post-graduate work in Southern history and religion.


I wrote

Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies

By Dennis L. Peterson,

Book cover of Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies

What is my book about?

Christ in Camp and Combat addresses the role that chaplains, missionaries, and colporteurs played in the armies of the Confederacy,…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The books I picked & why

Book cover of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery

Dennis L. Peterson Why did I love this book?

Three veteran journalists without a regional axe to grind but only a desire to find and communicate the historical facts present a compelling argument that slavery was a national, not merely a Southern, problem. Their findings are truly an inconvenient truth that anti-Southern historians must face if they sincerely want to be objective chroniclers of our nation’s history.

By Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, Jennifer Frank

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Complicity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A startling and superbly researched book demythologizing the North’s role in American slavery
 
“The hardest question is what to do when human rights give way to profits. . . . Complicity is a story of the skeletons that remain in this nation’s closet.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
The North’s profit from—indeed, dependence on—slavery has mostly been a shameful and well-kept secret . . . until now. Complicity reveals the cruel truth about the lucrative Triangle Trade of molasses, rum, and slaves that linked the North to the West Indies and Africa. It also discloses the reality of Northern empires built on tainted…


Book cover of Clash of Extremes

Dennis L. Peterson Why did I love this book?

Egnal shows that the causes of the war were indeed complex and multifaceted rather than resting on a single simplistic issue. His is a thorough treatment of the many economic factors involved in the war that resulted.

By Marc Egnal,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Clash of Extremes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Clash of Extremes" takes on the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over high moral principles. Marc Egnal contends that economics, more than any other factor, moved the country to war in 1861. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Egnal shows that between 1820 and 1850, patterns of trade and production drew the North and South together and allowed sectional leaders to broker a series of compromises. After midcentury, however, all that changed as the rise of the Great Lakes economy reoriented Northern trade along east-west lines. Meanwhile, in the South, soil exhaustion, concerns…


Book cover of Ersatz in the Confederacy: Shortages and Substitutes on the Southern Homefront

Dennis L. Peterson Why did I love this book?

Economic issues, including shortages of staple consumer goods, plagued the South throughout the war. Wherever a shortage existed, however, so did Southern efforts to find substitutes to meet the needs. Some of those substitutes were quite surprising and innovative.

By Mary Elizabeth Massey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ersatz in the Confederacy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published by the University of South Carolina in 1952, Ersatz in the Confederacy remains the definitive study of the South's desperate struggle to overcome critical shortages of food, medicine, clothing, household goods, farming supplies, and tools during the Civil War.

Mary Elizabeth Massey's seminal work carefully documents the ingenuity of the Confederates as they coped with shortages of manufactured goods and essential commodities―including grain, coffee, sugar, and butter―that previously had been imported from the northern states or from England. Creative Southerners substituted sawdust for soap, pigs' tails and ears for Christmas tree ornaments, leaves for mattress stuffing, okra seeds…


Book cover of Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War

Dennis L. Peterson Why did I love this book?

Although the South was not considered an industrial power, depending as it did on a primarily agricultural economy, the necessities of the war forced it to move toward greater and various emphases on industries and manufacturing. The strides it made, especially given the strictures of war, including a manpower shortage and a shrinking geographical base, are truly remarkable.

By Harold S. Wilson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Confederate Industry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By 1860 the South ranked high among the developed countries of the world in per capita income and life expectancy and in the number of railroad miles, telegraph lines, and institutions of higher learning. Only the major European powers and the North had more cotton and woolen spindles. This book examines the Confederate military's program to govern this prosperous industrial base by a quartermaster system. By commandeering more than half the South's produced goods for the military, the quartermaster general, in a drift toward socialism, appropriated hundreds of mills and controlled the flow of southern factory commodities. The most controversial…


Book cover of Onward Southern Soldiers: Religion and the Army of Tennessee in the Civil War

Dennis L. Peterson Why did I love this book?

Although many (even most) historians relegate religion to the periphery of the history of the war, Nichols-Belt shows it to be a critical ingredient of that history. Moreover, although historians who admit the importance of religion to the South’s conduct of the war, most of them focus primarily on the armies in the East. Nichols-Belt shines a light on the just-as-important influence of religion in the armies of the Western theater, specifically the Army of Tennessee.

By Traci Nichols-Belt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Onward Southern Soldiers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Civil War was trying, bloody and hard-fought combat for both sides. What was it, then, that sustained soldiers low on supplies and morale? For the Army of Tennessee, it was religion. Onward Southern Soldiers: Religion and the Army of Tennessee in the Civil War explores the significant impact of religion on every rank, from generals to chaplains to common soldiers. It took faith to endure overwhelming adversity. Religion united troops, informing both why and how they fought and providing the rationale for enduring great hardship for the Confederate cause. Using primary source material such as diaries, letters, journals and…


Explore my book 😀

Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies

By Dennis L. Peterson,

Book cover of Christ in Camp and Combat: Religious Work in the Confederate Armies

What is my book about?

Christ in Camp and Combat addresses the role that chaplains, missionaries, and colporteurs played in the armies of the Confederacy, moving religion from the periphery of Confederate history to the core. It reveals the burden of the Southern people for the spiritual wellbeing of their soldiers and their need to be prepared to suffer gruesome wounds, to die, and to face eternity. It surveys the work of each major denomination and presents biographical sketches of a representative sampling of such ministers from each denomination discussed. It is the story of Christian minister-heroes, spiritual soldiers in a spiritual conflict amidst the raging winds of earthly warfare.

You might also like...

The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

Book cover of The Bloomsbury Photographs

Maggie Humm Author Of Radical Woman: Gwen John & Rodin

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Woolfian Gym devotee World-traveller

Maggie's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, and holidays.

The Bloomsbury…

The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

What is this book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group's key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs

Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, holidays. Several photographs are…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Confederate States of America, the economy, and the American Civil War?

The Economy 185 books