Today is the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, which began on this day in 1861 when Confederate batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay.It has been said that more books have been written about the Civil War than about any other event in American history. As you would image, there are more than a few Civil War recommended reading lists out there.
One of the finest Civil War recommended reading lists that I’ve seen was compiled and published by the New York Times in November 2010. According to the original article about the list, it was "compiled from three sources: recommendations made by James McPherson, the Princeton history professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War author, for American Heritage Magazine in 1990; the finalists and prizewinners for the Lincoln Prize awarded by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lerhman Institute of American History annually; and suggestions by Jack Begg, the research supervisor of The New York Times.”
Without further ado, here are the 77 books that made the list:
1. “Abraham Lincoln: A Life” by Michael Burlingame (2010)
2. “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President” by Allen C. Guelzo (2000)
3. “Andersonville: The Last Depot” by William Marvel (1995)
4. “Battle Cry of Freedom” by James McPherson (1988)
5. “The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race” by John Stauffer
6. “Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo” by Charles B. Dew (1995)
7. “The Centennial History of the Civil War, 1861-65,” 3 Vols. by Bruce Catton
8. “The Civil War: A Narrative,” 3 Vols. by Shelby Foote (1958-1974)
9. “The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg’s Forgotten History – Immigrants, Women and African Americans in the Civil War’s Defining Battle” by Margaret Creighton (2006)
10. “The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat” by Gary Gallagher (1998)
11. “A Dangerous Stir: Fear, Paranoia, and the Making of Reconstruction” by Mark Wahlgren Summers (2010)
12. “Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864” by Albert Castel (1993)
13. “The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson and the Americans” by Charles Royster (1992)
14. “Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South” by Jonathan D. Martin (2005)
15. “The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics” by Don Fehrenbacher (1997)
16. “The Emergence of Lincoln,” 2 Vols. by Allan Nevins (1950)
17. “The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties” by Mark E. Neely Jr. (1991)
18. “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” by Eric Foner (2010)
19. “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War” by James McPherson (1998)
20. “Frederick Douglass” by William S. McFeely (1992)
21. “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” by George C. Rable (2003)
22. “Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom and the Civil War” by Ira Berlin, et al, editors. (1994)
23. “Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867: Series I, Vol. III, The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Lower South” by Ira Berlin, et al, editors. (1992)
24. “Glory Road” by Bruce Catton (1952)
25. “A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865” by Russell F. Weigley (2001)
26. “The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865” by Mark Grimsley (1996)
27. “Harvard’s Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry” by Richard F. Miller (2006)
28. “Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln” by Douglas L. Wilson (1999)
29. “The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North & South, 1861-1865” by Alice Fahs (2002)
30. “The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861” by David M. Potter (1976)
31. “John Brown’s War Against Slavery” by Robert McGlone (2010)
32. “Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography” by Craig L. Symonds (1993)
33. “Lee’s Lieutenants,” 3 Vols. by Douglas Southall Freeman (1942-44)
34. “Lee’s Miserables: A Life in the Army of Northern Virginia, from the Wilderness to Appomattox” by J. Tracy Power (1999)
35. “The Life of Billy Yank” by Bell Irvin Wiley (1952)
36. “The Life of Johnny Reb” by Bell Irvin Wiley (1943)
37. “A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman” by Michael Fellman (1996)
38. “Lincoln” by David Donald (1996)
39. “Lincoln” by Richard J. Carwardine (2004)
40. “Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy and the Civil War” by Craig Symonds (2009)
41. “Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President” by Harold Holzer (2005)
42. “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation” by Allen C. Guelzo (2005)
43. “Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words” by Douglas L. Wilson (2007)
44. “Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer” by Fred Kaplan (2009)
45. “Mr. Lincoln’s Army” by Bruce Catton (1951)
46. “A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration” by Steven Hahn (2004)
47. “The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russell Lowell Jr., 1835-1864” by Carol Bundy (2006)
48. “Ordeal of the Union,” 2 Vols. by Allan Nevins (1947)
49. “The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant” (ongoing series), edited by John Y. Simon
50. “The Peculiar Institution” by Kenneth Stampp (1956)
51. “President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman” by William Lee Miller (2008)
52. “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David Blight (2002)
53. “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics” by James Oakes (2008)
54. “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters” by Elizabeth Brown Pryor (2008)
55. “The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” by Drew Gilpin Faust (2008)
56. “The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War” by Michael Holt (2000)
57. “Robert E. Lee: A Biography,” 4 Vols. by Douglas Southall Freeman (1934-35)
58. “Runaway Slaves: Rebels in the Plantation” by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger (2000)
59. “Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War” by Jacqueline Jones (2009)
60. “The Sea Captain’s Wife: A True Story of Love, Race and War in the Nineteenth Century” by Martha Hodes (2007)
61. “Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order” by John F. Marszalek (1993)
62. “The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860” by Leonard L. Richards (2001)
63. “A Stillness at Appomattox” by Bruce Catton (1953)
64. “Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend” by James Robertson Jr.
65. “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006)
66. “This Astounding Close Road to Bennett Place” by Mark L. Bradley (2001)
67. “Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief” by James McPherson (2009)
68. “Tumult and Silence at Second Creek: An Inquiry into a Civil War Slave Conspiracy” by Winthrop D. Jordan (1994)
69. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture” by Stephen Railton (2001)
70. “Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War” by Harry S. Stout (2007)
71. “Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860-1890” by Michael Fitzgerald (2003)
72. “The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home” by Reid Mitchell (1994)
73. “The War for the Union,” 4 Vols. by Allan Nevins (1959-1971)
74. “What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery and the Civil War” by Manning Chandra (2008)
75. “With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union” by William C. Harris (1998)
76. “Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America” by Jane A. Schultz (2005)
77. “The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln” by Kenneth J. Winkle
As mentioned earlier, winners of the Lincoln Prize were considered during the compilation of this list. The Lincoln Prize is administered by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and has been awarded annually since 1991 for the best non-fiction history work of the previous year on the American Civil War.
The complete winners of the Lincoln Awards are as follows:
1991 – “The Civil War” by Ken Burns
1992 – “Frederick Douglass” by William S. McFeely
1993 – “The Peculiar Institution” by Kenneth Stampp
1994 – “Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom and the Civil War” by Ira Berlin, et al.
1995 – “The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln” by Phillip Shaw Paludan
1996 – “Lincoln” by David Herbert Donald
1997 – “Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s and The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics” by Don Fehrenbacher
1998 – “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War” by James M. McPherson
1999 – “Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln” by Douglas L. Wilson
2000 – “Runaway Slaves: Rebels in the Plantation” by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger
2000 – “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President” by Allen C. Guelzo
2001 – “A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865” by Russell F. Weigley
2002 – “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David W. Blight
2003 – “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” by George C. Rable
2004 – “Lincoln” by Richard Carwardine
2005 – “Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation” by Allen C. Guelzo
2006 – “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin
2007 – “Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Worlds” by Douglas L. Wilson
2008 – “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes
2008 – “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his Private Letters” by Elizabeth Brown Pryor
2009 – “Tried by War” Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
2009 – “Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy and the Civil War” by Craig Symonds
2010 – “Abraham Lincoln: A Life” by Michael Burlingame
2011 – “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” by Eric Foner
In the end, how many of the books mentioned above have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend? Also, do you know of any other Civil War recommended reading lists that you would recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.
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