10 books like With Courage and Delicacy

This volume offers a survey of Civil War nurses in both the North and the South. Not only do readers meet individuals like Clara Barton, but readers get an overview of pioneering women in this field, with detailed statistics not found in memoirs.

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.

This journal gives us a look into the experiences of Confederate nurse, Kate Cumming. She was educated and intelligent, but blind to the wrongs of slavery in her passion for the Southern cause. Her experience as a Civil War nurse offers a contrast to those of Union nurses.

Many African American women served as nurses, especially in the South, as Susie King Taylor did. But their stories have largely gone unrecorded. This memoir adds an important perspective to any consideration of Civil War nurses.

Whether one is a Civil War buff, or a fan of Sun Tzu’s military strategy, you will find plenty of both in this three-volume set. Volume 1 is: Fort Sumter to Perryville. Volume 2 is: Fredericksburg to Meridian, and Volume 3 is: Red River to Appomattox.  

Shelby Foote’s work provided most of the background of Ken Burn’s PBS epic, The Civil War. Anyone who watched that masterpiece and heard the knowledge of Shelby Foote spoken in the most lovely Southern drawl, will not be disappointed in this collection. 

The Civil War: A Narrative – 3 volume box set provided significant detail and motivation for me as I wrote my own book.  When I had a question about a date, geography of a battle, written correspondence between fighters or allies, or conversations such as took place at Appomattox Courthouse between Generals Grant and Lee, I went immediately to Shelby Foote’s three-volume… show more.

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.

We know Louisa May Alcott primarily as an author and the writer of the great masterpiece, Little Women, but many do not realize she was also a nurse during the Civil War. This book explores how her experiences in Washington D.C. as a nurse impacted her writing as well as her beliefs. Easy to read, captivating account. Highly recommend!

When the authors in Distant Flickers formed Telltale, a writers’ collective, we brainstormed ways to reach out to readers and give them insight as to how our life experiences are transformed into art. We decided to put together an anthology as part of our endeavor. In doing so, we researched how other writer collectives reached out to their readership. A number of us are historical fiction writers and/or members of the Womens Fiction Writers Association (WFWA), which is how we came to be acquainted with Paper Lanterns, the collective of historical fiction writers behind this anthology. The stories in Unlocked are works of historical fiction that revolve around the common element of an old wooden chest. The settings are varied and span seven centuries, from 1225 Ireland to 1679 Amsterdam to the American Civil War to Regency London to World War II to the Nineteen Seventies.

Stephen Crane was born in 1871; his father was a minister; his mother-daughter of a minister. His Christian background prepared him to write about the Civil War, which was understood by soldiers on both sides as a moral test of manly status. Despite having no personal experience of battle, Crane wrote a classic novel that includes both battle scenes and the interior story of a young man’s fight against fear. His young protagonist, Henry Fleming, begins in cowardice and ends in heroism. I love this book for its insight into the constant stress of men in combat—facing the pain of wounds and the finality of death.

This book completely debunks every romantic Old South and Lost Cause myth. Relying on a plethora of primary sources, especially letters and diaries, Clinton reveals the real and often heartbreaking lives of white plantation women and black enslaved women. Always an engaging writer, Clinton narrates the deep and troubled subject with empathy and a level hand.