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Mr. SMITH-- SUGGESTIONS FOR AMERICAN HISTORY 1800 THROUGH WORLD WAR I
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Killing Lincoln : the shocking assassination that changed America forever by Bill O'Reilly and
Martin Duga 324 p
A riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history - how one
gunshot changed the country forever. A furious manhunt ensues and Booth immediately
becomes the country's most wanted fugitive. Lafayette C. Baker, a smart but shifty New York
detective and former Union spy, unravels the string of clues leading to Booth, while federal
forces track his accomplices. The thrilling chase ends in a fiery shootout and a series of courtordered executions - including that of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government,
Mary Surratt. Reads like a novel.
Pioneer children on the journey west by Emmy E. Werner 224 p.
Between 1841 and 1865, some 40,000 children took part in the great overland journeys from
the banks of the Missouri River to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, enduring oppressive heat and
cold, cholera, dysentery, and scurvy. Using journals, this book tells the story of 120 of these
young emigrants, boys and girls ranging in age from four to 17.
Bury my heart at wounded knee by Dee Brown
Documents and personal narratives record the experiences of Native Americans during the
nineteenth century.
Trails of tears: American Indians driven from their lands by Jeanne Williams 187 pages
Describes the white man's treatment and forcible displacement of five Indian nations of the
Southwest--the Comanche, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, and Cherokee.
Oh what a slaughter: massacres in the American West, 1846-1890 by Larry McMurtry 178
pages
Recounts massacres that took place in America throughout the latter half of the nineteenth
century, describing violent clashes involving Native Americans, pioneer settlers, and others.
Jesse James: the man and the myth by Marley Brant 312 pages
Confederate guerrilla. Bank robber. Cold-blooded killer. Jesse James was all of these. The author
paints a portrait of a man obsessed with rebellion, loyalty, and an irrepressible need to be
known.
Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the fire that saved America by Timothy Egan 324 pages
Narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire of August, 1910,
and Teddy Roosevelt's pioneering conservation efforts that helped turn public opinion
permanently in favor of the forests, though it changed the mission of the forest service with
consequences felt in the fires of today.
The belles of New England the women of the textile mills and the families whose wealth they
wove by William Moran 292 pages
Examines the cultural and economic impact of New England's textile mills in America, tracing
the influences of Francis Cabot Lowell and wealthy Boston owners and considers related issues
involving slavery, immigration, and workers' rights.
Triangle: the fire that changed America by David Von Drehle 340 pages
The tragic conflagration at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in March 1911 resulted in the deaths
of 123 women (most of them young immigrants), caused widespread public outrage, and set in
motion a wave of reform.
Boss Tweed: the rise and fall of the corrupt pol who conceived the soul of modern New York
by Kenneth Ackerman 437 pages
William Tweed is synonymous with urban political corruption in the post-Civil War era.
All for the Union: the Civil War diary and letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes by Elisha Hunt Rhodes
All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, who enlisted into the
Union Army from Rhode Island as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a 23-year-old
lieutenant colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox.
Used in the Ken Burns PBS special on the Civil War.
Destiny of the Republic : a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president by
Candice Millard. 339 p.
Four months after his inauguration, a deranged office-seeker shot President Garfield in the back,
but the shot didn't kill him. What happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in
turmoil. The event shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil
war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter struggle for power--over his
administration, over the nation's future, and over his medical care. A team of physicians
administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition worsened,
Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell worked around the clock to invent a new device
to find the bullet.
The last stand : Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick
466 p.
Philbrick brilliantly sketches the two larger-than-life antagonists: Sitting Bull, whose charisma
and political savvy earned him the position of leader of the Plains Indians, and George
Armstrong Custer, one of the Union's greatest cavalry officers and a man with a reputation for
fearless and often reckless courage. Philbrick reminds readers that the Battle of the Little
Bighorn was also, even in victory, the last stand for the Sioux and Cheyenne Indian nations.
Precious dust : the American gold rush era, 1848-1900 by Paula Mitchell Marks. 448 p.
Drawing on hundreds of letters, diaries, and first-hand accounts, the author reconstructs the
experiences of nearly one million prospectors who descended on the American and Canadian
West during America's great gold-rush era.
Starving the South : how the North won the Civil War by Andrew F. Smith 295 p.
New look at how Union blockades brought about the defeat of a hungry Confederacy. Lincoln
ordered a blockade of Southern ports used by the Confederacy for cotton and tobacco exporting
as well as for the importation of food.
Forbidden fruit : love stories from the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus. 269 p.
A collection of fascinating, largely untold stories of ordinary men and women who took
extraordinary measures, risking life and limb to be together. It¹s the story of couples who faced
mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to defy the system that allowed slave masters
to breed and sell people like cattle.
Hidden in plain view : the secret story of quilts and the underground railroad by Jacqueline L.
Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard.
“There are five square knots on the quilt every two inches apart. They escaped on the fifth knot
on the tenth pattern and went to Ontario, Canada. The monkey wrench turns the wagon wheel
toward Canada on a bear's paw trail to the crossroads--" it is a coded message steeped in
African textile traditions that provides a link between slave-made quilts and the Underground
Railroad.
Gettysburg's unknown soldier : the life, death, and celebrity of Amos Humiston by Mark H.
Dunkelman 272 p.
The true tale of an unknown soldier found dead at Gettysburg, clutching a photograph of his
children, and the wave of publicity that led to his eventual identification and celebration
throughout the North.
The slaves' war : the Civil War in the words of former slaves by Andrew Ward. 386 p.
Woven together from hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs, here is a
groundbreaking and poignant narrative of the Civil War as seen from not only battlefields,
capitals, and camps, but from slave quarters, kitchens, roadsides, and fields as well. Speaking in
a quintessentially American language, body servants, army cooks, runaways, and gravediggers
bring the war to life.
Forever free : the story of emancipation and Reconstruction by Eric Foner 268 p.
A new examination of the vitally important years of Emancipation and Reconstruction during
and immediately following the Civil War-a necessary reconsideration that emphasizes the era's
political and cultural meaning for today's America.
Patriots in disguise : women warriors of the Civil War by Richard Hall. 224 p.
Some women were not content with conventional roles in the Civil War and went to great
efforts to participate in combat. Hall draws upon diaries, letters, and other documents to tell
about the women who dressed as men and served as soldiers--including those whose exploits
became well known as well as others who were lesser known or merely suspected.
They fought like demons : women soldiers in the American Civil War by DeAnne Blanton and
Lauren M. Cook
At least 250 women served-disguised as men-in the ranks of both North and South during the
Civil War. After covering the major combat actions in which women served (and in which several
were killed), the authors reconstruct the reasons why women entered the armed forces: many
were simply patriotic, while others followed their husbands or lovers and yet others yearned to
break free from the constraints that Victorian society had laid on them as women.
The war of the aeronauts : a history of ballooning during the Civil War by Charles M. Evans.
358 p.
The Union Army Balloon Corps holds a significant place in the annals of Civil War and military
history. From 1861 to 1863 the corps contributed invaluable surveillance and reconnaissance
information to the Union Army's war effort during the Virginia campaign. It also accomplished
such significant military feats as the initial air-to-ground communication by telegraph, the first
use of the "aircraft carrier" for launch of the balloon, and the first artillery barrage directed by
an aerial observer where gun batteries were unable to see their targets from the ground.
Across the Great Divide : Robert Stuart and the discovery of the Oregon Trail by Laton
McCartney. 307 p.
In the tradition of Lewis and Clark in "Undaunted Courage" comes the never-before-told story of
Robert Stuart, whose discovery of the Oregon Trail changed America forever.
The last gunfight : the real story of the shootout at the O.K. Corral and how it changed the
American west by Jeff Guinn. 392 p.
The gunfight did not actually occur in the O.K. Corral, and it was in no way a defining battle
between frontier forces of good and evil. Guinn depicts an accidental if inevitable clash between
competing social, political, and economic forces representing the old West of ruggedly
independent ranchers and cowboys and the emerging new West of wealthy mining interests and
well-heeled town folk.
Disaster! : the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 by Dan Kurzman. 296 p.
The San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906, destroyed most of the city. The fires afterward,
however, leveled what remained and rendered the entire population homeless; perhaps ten
thousand died all told. While the great opera singer Enrico Caruso rushed to save his clothes and
valuables, the poor ran for their lives; and as firemen valiantly fought the firestorm in a futile
effort to save the city, the disaster made heroes out of beggars and beggars of rich men.
Corruption reached new lows, and human generosity blossomed under adversity.
Women in waiting in the westward movement : life on the home frontier by Linda Peavy and
Ursula Smith 381 p.
During the last half of the nineteenth century, thousands of men went west in search of gold,
land, or adventure - leaving their wives to handle family, farm, and business affairs on their
own. Though these wives were left more or less in limbo by the departure of their adventuring
husbands, they were hardly women in waiting in any other sense. Children had to be fed,
clothed, housed, and educated; farms and businesses had to be managed; creditors had to be
paid or pacified - and, in some cases, hard-earned butter-and-egg money had to be sent west in
response to letters from broke and disillusioned husbands.
Manhunt: the 12-day chase for Lincoln’s killer by James L. Swanson 448 pages
Manhunt describes the details of the twelve days after Abraham Lincoln's assassination when
various factions within the U.S. government and even some outside it hunted for the President's
killer, John Wilkes Booth. The pursuit of Lincoln's assassins is one of the greatest untold stories
in American history.
American legend: the real-life adventures of David Crockett by Buddy Levy 339 pages
One of America's most enduring symbols of the Old West, David Crockett was an adventurer, a
pioneer, and a tragic hero who died at the Alamo.
The Alamo: an illustrated history by Edwin P. Hoyt 189 pages
A dramatic portrait of Texas' most heroic moment, "The Alamo" not only recounts the legendary
defense of the mission by a small band of larger-than-life heroes, but also chronicles the site's
history from the 1820s to 1836.
All for the Union: the Civil War diary and letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes by Elisha Hunt Rhodes
All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, who enlisted into the
Union Army from Rhode Island as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a 23-year-old
lieutenant colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox.
Used in the Ken Burns PBS special on the Civil War.
A crack in the edge of the world : America and the great California earthquake of 1906 by
Simon Winchester. 462 pages
Winchester's recounting of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is dense with facts but light and
breezy in style. Full of both geological history and personal anecdotes, the book explains the
longstanding dangers of the San Andreas Fault and the long-term consequences of the
earthquake it caused. Winchester also provides a palpably vibrant picture of life in San Francisco
just before and following the earthquake
Boss Tweed: the rise and fall of the corrupt pol who conceived the soul of modern New York
by Kenneth Ackerman 437 pages
William Tweed is synonymous with urban political corruption in the post-Civil War era.
Eyewitness at Wounded Knee by Roy Jenkins 210 pages
On a wintry day in December 1890, near a creek named Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota, the Seventh Cavalry of the U. S. Army opened fire on an
encampment of Sioux Indians led by Big Foot. Coming two weeks after the killing of Sitting Bull,
in a tense atmosphere of suspicion and misunderstanding, the careless discharge of one gun set
off a massacre that claimed more than 250 lives, including those of many Indian women and
children.
Gold Rush women by Claire Rudolf Murphy 126 pages
This book gathers the riveting stories of adventurous women -- miners, madams, merchants,
and mothers during the gold rush era.
FICTION
Where the broken heart still beats by Carolyn Meyer 197 pages
Having been taken as a child and raised by Comanche Indians, thirty-four-year-old Cynthia Ann
Parker is forcibly returned to her white relatives, where she longs for her Indian life and her only
friend is her twelve-year-old cousin Lucy.
Uncle Tom’s cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom's master sells him, separating him from his wife, and he becomes attached to the
gentle daughter of his new owner, but after her death, he is sold to the evil Simon Legree.
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper 302 pages
Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their
Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives
sanctuary to slaves.
The known world by Edward P. Jones 388 pages
When a plantation proprietor and former slave--now possessing slaves of his own--dies, his
household falls apart in the wake of a slave rebellion and corrupt underpaid patrollers who
enable free black people to be sold into slavery.
A light to my path by Lynn Austin (Adult, 432 pages)
Kitty, a house slave, is overwhelmed when she must choose between continuing to do the
bidding of her owners or embrace a chance at freedom when Yankees arrive, but Grady, the
man she loves, is the driving force behind her choice
Gap Creek : a novel by Robert Morgan 326 p.
Julie and Hank’s life in the Appalachian high country in the last years of the nineteenth century
is more complicated than the couple ever imagined. Fires and floods or the flesh-and-blood
grifters, drunks, and busybodies who insinuate themselves into their new lives. Their struggles
with nature, with work, and with the changing century.
Lonesome dove : a novel by Larry McMurtry 843 p.
Chronicles a cattle drive in the nineteenth century from Texas to Montana, and follows the lives
of Gus and Call, the cowboys heading the drive, Gus's woman, Lorena, and Blue Duck, a sinister
Indian renegade
The wandering hill : a novel by Larry McMurtry 302 p.
In The Wandering Hill, Larry McMurtry continues the story of Tasmin Berrybender and her
family in the still unexplored Wild West of the 1830s.
The gates of the Alamo : a novel by Stephen Harrigan 581 p.
A fictional chronicle centered around the fall of the Alamo provides a dramatic re-creation of an
event that shaped the history and identity of Texas.
Slaughter by Elmer Kelton. 369 p.
The Civil War has ended and the country is again focused on Manifest Destiny. Thrown from a
train in Kansas by irate victims of his prowess with cards, English gambler Nigel Smithwick is
saved from death in the desert by former Confederate soldier Jeff Layne. The pair team up as
buffalo hunters, and inevitably they clash with the Comanche Indians, whose traditional way of
life is threatened by white hunters' mass killing of the buffalo.
Ranger's trail by Elmer Kelton 287 p.
Set in the tumultuous Reconstruction period of Texas history, Ranger's Trail chronicles the
origins of the renowned Texas Rangers, that protect settlers against Indian raids told as fiction
but historically accurate in every detail and written by a favorite son of Texas.
One thousand white women : the journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus 304 p.
One Thousand White Women is the story of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer
women who, under the auspices of the U.S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875
to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians.
Abraham's well : a novel by Sharon Ewell Foster. 335 p.
Inspired by true events, authentic slave narratives, and other historical accounts, Abraham's
Well is the profoundly moving story of the Black Cherokee African Americans, both slave and
free who, along with native people, walked the Trail of Tears.
Thirteen moons : a novel by Charles Frazier 422 p.
Thirteen Moons is the story of one man's remarkable life, spanning a century of relentless
change. At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map
and is sent on a journey through the wilderness to the edge of the Cherokee Nation, the
uncharted white space on the map. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading
post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted
by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Will's character.
The heartsong of Charging Elk : a novel by James Welch. 440 p.
As a young boy, Charging Elk witnessed his people's massacre of Custer's Seventh Cavalry at
Little Big Horn, followed by years of futile fighting and wandering until the Sioux were finally
lured to the Pine Ridge reservation. But he prefers life in the Stronghold, living by his wits and
skills in the old way. Ironically, it is Charging Elk's horsemanship and independent air that cause
Buffalo Bill to recruit him for his Wild West Show, which travels across "the big water" to create
a sensation in the capitals of Europe.
Flint's honor by Richard S. Wheeler. 320 p.
Sam Flint, a dedicated frontier journalist, tries to launch his own newspaper in Silver City,
Colorado, to counter the lies of a rival newspaper run by a corrupt and manipulative editor.
Sun Mountain : a Comstock memoir by Richard S. Wheeler
There has never been a place like the Comstock or a city like Virginia or a gathering of brilliant
men such as those who assembled there". So writes Henry Stoddard in this unforgettable
memoir of Virginia City, Nevada.
All together in one place : a novel of kinship, courage, and faith by Jane Kirkpatrick. 406 p.
One of the incidents that made a profound impression upon the minds of all: the meeting of
eleven wagons returning and not a man left in the entire train; all had died, and been buried on
the way, and the women returning alone. Based on an actual 1852 Oregon Trail incident, this
book speaks to the strength in every woman and celebrates the promise of hope that
unfailingly blooms amidst tragedy and challenge.
The daughter's walk : a novel by Jane Kirkpatrick. 388 p.
Nineteen-year-old Clara Estby is hauled by her mother, Helga, on a 7,000-mile walk from
Spokane, Wash., to New York in 1896. The fashion industry is looking for promotion of the new,
shorter dress for women; Helga is looking for a cash prize to save the family farm from
foreclosure ... and Clara dreams of becoming a businesswoman.
No eye can see : a novel of kinship, courage, and faith by Jane Kirkpatrick. 399 p.
When blind and widowed Suzanne reaches California with a group of women who have survived
tragedy on the Oregon Trail, she sets her mind on doing for herself all that must be done.
Though she cannot see, she rejects offers of assistance.
Until we reach home by Lynn Austin. 428 p.
Life in Sweden seems like an endless winter for three sisters after their mother's and father's
suicides. Ellin writes to her relatives in Chicago, pleading for help. Joining 16 million other
immigrants who leave their homelands for America between 1890 and 1920, Ellin, Kirsten, and
Sophia begin the long, difficult journey fraught with hardships.
The wake of the wind by J. California Cooper. 373 p.
Set in the South in the waning years of the Civil War, this is the dramatic story of a remarkable
heroine and her husband. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, they set out in search of
hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only
to survive, but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and
others. But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements
of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustice become a plague across the region, time and
again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.
Family : a novel by J. California Cooper
Much has been written about the institution of slavery. But with "Family", Cooper has taken the
slave narrative and recreated it as an epic. Cooper weaves four wry, humorous, tragic tales that
envelop and transcend time, offering hope and renewal at the same time they chronicle
desolation and death.
A separate country by Robert Hicks. 424 p.
Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, this book is based on the incredible life of
John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army. At
Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was
amputated. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had
one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever. This is the heartrending story of a decent and good man
who struggled with his inability to admit his failures-and the story of those who taught him to
love, and to be loved, and transformed him.
Rebel wife by Taylor Polites. 304 p
Set in Reconstruction Alabama, a young widow’s quest for truth turns into a race for her life.
Newly widowed, Augusta begins to wake to the realities that surround her: her social standing is
stained by her marriage, she is alone and unprotected in a community that is being destroyed by
racial prejudice and violence, the fortune she thought she would inherit does not exist, and the
deadly blood fever is spreading like wildfire. The Rebel Wife shatters the myths that still cling to
the antebellum South and creates an unforgettable heroine for our time.
City of promise : a novel of the Gilded Age by Beverly Swerling. 422 p.
In the years following the Civil War, as Manhattan experiences a surge in prosperity, Joshua
Turner aspires to become a real-estate titan while Mollie Brannigan, raised by her aunt in a
bordello, sees her life change after a chance encounter with Joshua in Macy's.
Copperhead by Bernard Cornwell. 375 p.
The beloved Confederate Captain Nate Starbuck returns to the front lines of the Civil War. It is
the summer of 1862, and Nate has been bloodied but victorious at the battles of Ball's Bluff and
Seven Pines. But he can't escape his Northern roots, and it is only a matter of time until he's
accused of being a Yankee spy, pursued, and brutally interrogated. To clear his name, he must
find the real traitor-a search that will require extraordinary courage, endurance, and a perilous
odyssey through enemy territory.
The march : a novel by E.L. Doctorow 363 p.
In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his sixty
thousand troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army
fought off Confederate forces and lived off the land, pillaging the Southern plantations, taking
cattle and crops for their own, demolishing cities, and accumulating a borne-along population of
freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the
uprooted, the dispossessed, and the triumphant.
Cold mountain by Charles Frazier. 356 p.
Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier who walks away from the ravages of the war
and back home to his prewar sweetheart. His odyssey through the devastated landscape of the
soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with her struggle to revive her father's farm. As their
long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, the two confront the vastly
transformed world they've been delivered.
The battle of the crater : a novel of the Civil War by New Gingrich 364 p.
Drawing on years of research, the authors weave a complex narrative interweaving the high
aspirations of African American troops eager to prove themselves in battle and the anxiety of a
President who knows the nation cannot bear another major defeat. General Burnside needs
these troops for one desperate rush that just might bring victory. The risks are high. Will
Burnside be allowed to proceed or will interference from on high doom his plan to failure?
North and South by John Jakes. 740 p.
From America's master storyteller and writer of historical fiction comes the epic story of two
families who are separated by vastly different ways of life, joined by the unbreakable bonds of
true friendship, and torn asunder by a country at the threshold of a bloody conflict that would
change their lives forever.
The widow of the south by Robert Hicks 426 p.
In 1894 Carrie McGavock is an old woman who has only her former slave to keep her company
along with the almost 1,500 soldiers buried in her backyard. Years ago, rather than let someone
plow over the field where these young men had been buried, Carrie dug them up and buried
them in her own personal cemetery. Now, as she walks the rows of the dead, an old soldier
appears. It is the man she met that day of the battle that changed everything. The man who
came to her house as a wounded soldier and left with her heart.
Canaan : a novel by Donald McCaig. 422 p.
A saga of post-Civil War America, from the defeat of the Confederacy to the Battle of Little
Bighorn, this is the story of America over twenty years of its most turbulent history. The
characters are black, white, red, ex-Union, and ex-Confederate, and the principal narrator is a
Santee woman who marries an ex-slave. Through her eyes we witness the hanging of her father
by whites in the mass execution of 1863, Red Cloud's banquet with President Grant, and that
final confrontation on the bluffs above the Little Bighorn.
Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell. 1037 p.
This is one of the most powerful novels ever written. Told from the standpoint of the women left
behind, it brilliantly illustrates the heartbreaking and devastating effects of war on the land and
its people.
My name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira 364 p.
An enthralling historical novel about a young woman's struggle to become a doctor during the
Civil.
Mary : a novel by Janis Cooke Newman 707 p.
An engrossing novel about Mary Todd Lincoln - one of history's most misunderstood and
enigmatic women. Writing from Bellevue asylum -- where the shrieks of the other inmates keep
her awake at night -- a famous widow can finally share the story of her life in her own words.
From her tempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through the opium-clouded
years after her husband's death, we are let into the inner, intimate world of this brave and
fascinating woman.
Lincoln : a novel by Gore Vidal 657 p.
Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal's fictional American chronicle. In this profoundly moving
novel, a work of epic proportions and intense human sympathy, Lincoln is observed by his loved
ones and his rivals.
The killer angels : a novel by Michael Shaara. 374 p.
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two
conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and
bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love.
And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and
pristine beauty were also the casualties of war.
The last full measure by Jeff Shaara
Gettysburg is past and the war advances to its third brutal year. Never has the cumbersome
Union Army so desperately needed a decisive, hard-nosed leader. It is at this critical moment
that Lincoln places Ulysses S. Grant in command--and turns the tide of war. Battle by staggering
battle, Shaara dramatizes the escalating confrontation between Lee and Grant--complicated,
heroic, deeply troubled men. From the costly Battle of the Wilderness to the agonizing siege of
Petersburg to Lee's epoch-making surrender at Appomattox, Shaara portrays the riveting
conclusion of the Civil War.
The black flower : a novel of the Civil War by Howard Bahr
As John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee literally disappears in a hail of cannon and rifle fire from
the Union Army's entrenchments, young rifleman Bushrod Carter vividly imparts the
Confederate charge and its deadly consequences. After he is brought to a makeshift hospital,
Carter comes under the care of a young southern woman named Anna, who, even in the midst
of battle and defeat, manages to find ways to express her love. Written with reverent attention
to historical accuracy, The Black Flower is a powerful reminder that the war that divided
America will not vanish quietly into the pages of history.
Cloudsplitter : a novel by Russell Banks
Banks takes on one of American history's most misunderstood figures, John Brown, whose
October 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, crossed the line from civil
protest to armed struggle, prefiguring the greatest conflagration in this country's history.
Narrated by the enigmatic abolitionist's son Owen, the novel dazzlingly re-creates the fractured
political and social landscape of pre-Civil War America, when slavery and talk of secession were
tearing the country apart.
March : a novel by Geraldine Brooks. 280 p.
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one
man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously
researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history. From
Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women , Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of
the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do
in mean times. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known
backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his
side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism.
The red badge of courage by Stephen Crane
Henry Fleming, a young Union soldier, struggles with his conflicting emotions about violence,
death, and the nature of bravery in this ironic, skeptical account of the Civil War.
James Reasoner has written many novels about the battles of the civil warm including
Antietam, Appomattox, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, Manassas, Savannah, Shenandoah,
Shiloh, and Vicksburg
Descriptions taken from library’s III catalog