100 books like Out of the Briars

Early in the war, writer Louisa May Alcott journeyed to the nation’s capital to care for sick and wounded soldiers. Over a period of six weeks, she experienced firsthand the rigors of life in crowded hospital wards as a nurse to men suffering from disease and wounds. She recorded her observations in a series of accounts printed in a Boston newspaper. These writings formed the basis of Hospital Sketches. Published a month after the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, when the outcome of the war remained uncertain, Alcott’s words encouraged other women to support the U.S. war effort, and remind us today of the critical role of nurses in times of conflict.

Hailed by historians as one of the most important memoirs authored by a Civil War veteran, Hard Tack and Coffee tells the story of army life. John D. Billings traces the trail of the citizen soldier from recruitment and enlistment to the trials and tribulations of camp and campaign. Written more than two decades after the end of the conflict, Billings reflects on those tumultuous times with humor as he and his comrades stumbled their way through the varied lessons of the art of war. After he mustered out of a Massachusetts artillery regiment in 1865, Billings went on to become a respected educator.

The bonds of comradeship formed by volunteer soldiers during the Civil War lasted a lifetime for those who survived its bloody campaigns. Most regiments held annual reunions, during which the veterans rekindled friendships and remembered their service. Many collected reminiscences in book form, and these regimental histories are treasure troves of personal accounts. One of the most outstanding of this genre is the History of the Twelfth Regiment, a narrative of the men and officers who served in the 12th New Hampshire Infantry. Author Asa Bartlett, a beloved officer, humanizes the service of these Granite State volunteers.

Battle-hardened and wounded veteran Ambrose Bierce recounted his army experiences in a series of grim short stories that reveal the horrors of the Civil War. In graphic detail, he paints a disturbing and twisted picture of the conflict. His writings stand in stark contrast to reminiscences by other veterans in the twilight of life who reflected on their participation in the battles and campaigns with pride and esprit de corps. A collection of these fictional writings by “Bitter Bierce” first published as Tales of Soldiers and Civilians explores the dark side of the Civil War—and human nature—with a unique brand of wit and satire.

Historian Mark M. Smith is one of the pioneers of the truly exciting field of sensory history. Smith’s book is a model for how the next generations of historians can expand our understanding of the power and spectacle of war through a focus on all the senses. Smith’s chapters pick a particular sense at a particular Civil War site—my favorite is “Cornelia Hancock’s Sense of Smell,” which helps us appreciate how the assaults of transgressive smells lasted far beyond the three days of combat at Gettysburg.  Each chapter is carefully crafted to illustrate how an assault of the senses threatened the stability of what registered as “civilization” for the Civil War generation. After reading several of Smith’s books, I found myself much more attentive to the sensory dimension of any historical experience. Early in my tenure as editor of the Journal Of American History, I asked Smith to be… show more.

The definitive work on the Elmira POW Camp, Michael Gray’s book is a captivating account of life inside the pen on the Chemung River. Especially valuable is Gray’s account of Elmira’s management by the post commanders, commandants, Commissary General of Prisoners and its supervision by the War Department. It is a web of intrigue and even conspiracy. Another important aspect of this path-breaking book is the micro-economy that was created by the prisoners, who kept themselves busy by catching and selling rats, making jewelry, and other ornaments, and fostering a marketplace where tobacco was the primary medium of exchange.

The Civil War west of the Mississippi doesn’t get much attention in historical fiction, but it’s an incredibly rich period, with storylines and characters to fill a hundred books. Morkan’s Quarry is one of my favorites from that period. It’s set in Springfield, Missouri, the site of one of the war’s first major battles. Michael Morkan operates a rock quarry just outside of town, and rock quarries have one product on hand that is highly prized during wartime – gunpowder. Michael and his son Leighton soon learn how thin the veneer of civilization is once a war is underway. The Civil War in Missouri was characterized by day-to-day savagery, private violence, and disrespect for the “rules” of warfare, and Morkan’s Quarry captures that spirit all too well. 

I once stumbled onto a celebration of Confederate Memorial Day in a small Kentucky mountain town, but I had always been told that the mountains of eastern Kentucky were a stronghold of Unionism during the Civil War. McKnight’s book helped me understand the complexity of the Appalachian region and its experience of the war. Both armies used the mountain gaps as gateways to invasion, exploited the local residents, and despoiled the landscape. Life in the mountains in the 19th century had always been hard; the Civil War made it a lot harder.

The campaign to capture Atlanta, waged over the summer of 1864, was one of the most decisive events of the entire American Civil War. Historians have argued that Atlanta’s fall, achieved that September, demonstrated to a war-weary North that the Lincoln Administration’s war policies were successful, and that victory was in sight. However, prior to 1992, there was very little coverage of any aspect of the campaign, let alone a narrative history of the full campaign.

Thirty years later, Decision in the West remains the standard work on the Atlanta Campaign. Though Castel’s coverage of individual battles (Resaca, Pickett’s Mill, Kennesaw, Peachtree Creek, the July 22 Battle of Atlanta, etc.) is limited to mostly a command-level discussion of those engagements, his interpretations of the decisions and actions of the three main principals—Sherman for the Federals, Johnston, and Hood for the Confederates—are both fascinating and thought-provoking. The author’s decision to rely… show more.

Yes, I know: “Eight volumes? Are you mad, Kratman?” 

This is unquestionably the greatest single history on the American Civil War ever written. There are over sixty thousand books about the Civil War in existence. You cannot hope to read them all. This being true, if the subject interests you—and it ought, because the Civil War made the United States what it is—if you can read only eight, make this series the eight. Think of it as a really long single volume work.