Category: Civil War Book Reviews
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Bruce Levine – Confederate Emancipation
For the past two years I’ve been more interested in the historiography of the Civil War than the actual events itself. The historiography through memory writing school is relatively new to the Civil War history scene, led by historians like David Blight, but it’s making steady progress. While most works (including this site) still focus […]
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Review: The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock
Books On The Fredericksburg Campaign The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock (Military Campaigns of the Civil War) ed. by Gary Gallagher This is the second review of Gallagher’s essay books where I will review each article individually, thereby giving readers a chance to judge for themselves whether or not enough articles interest them to […]
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Review: Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg
Books On The Vicksburg Campaign Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg. Timothy B. Smith. New York, NY: Savas Beatie LLC (2004). 502 pp. 41 maps. This is a review and summary of Timothy B. Smith’s Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg. Dr. Smith sets out to write the first detailed history of the most important […]
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Review: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862
Books On Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 edited by Gary Gallagher I’m going to try something different for this book. Since it is a collection of essays, I plan on reviewing each essay on its own merits. I will do this for all future Gallagher books, and I hope to […]
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Book Review: Stonewall Jackson’s Romney Campaign by Thomas M. Rankin
Books On Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign (and the Romney Campaign) This is a review and summary of Thomas M. Rankin’s H.E. Howard “Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series” book entitled Stonewall Jackson’s Romney Campaign: January 1 – February 20, 1862. The book traces Jackson’s unsuccessful campaign to take back some of the northwestern Virginia […]
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Review: Ball’s Bluff: A Small Battle and Its Long Shadow by Byron Farwell
Books On Ball’s Bluff The following is a review and short summary of Ball’s Bluff: A Small Battle and Its Long Shadow (EPM, 1990), by Byron Farwell. Farwell’s book covers the October 21, 1861 Battle of Ball’s Bluff, a small fight between the Confederate Brigade of Nathan “Shanks” Evans and the Union forces under Senator […]
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Review In Brief: Mother, May You Never See The Sights I Have Seen
Mother, May You Never See the Sights I Have Seen: The Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac, 1864-1865 by Warren Wilkinson 665 pp., 11 maps I want to preface this review with the admission that I have read very few unit histories to this point. While I feel very comfortable reviewing […]