American Civil War Books
(to be released February 2026)
Compiled by Kim Weaver, OBCWRT member
Confederate General D. H. Hill: A Military Life by Chris J. Hartley/Savas Beatie
Daniel Harvey Hill was a devoutly religious man with an unrelenting disdain for Yankees. He was also one of the fiercest warriors to stride a battlefield. The West Point graduate, celebrated for his extraordinary courage in the Mexican War, carried that bravery into the Civil War charging into the bloodiest conflicts with the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee. Controversy followed him relentlessly, as inescapable as his shadow. In this groundbreaking cradle-to-grave biography, award-winning author Chris J. Hartley offers a compelling military reassessment of one of the Confederacy’s most enigmatic figures.
A native South Carolinian, Hill stood at the heart of the Civil War’s most pivotal moments and the center of its fiercest controversies. From his reluctant assault against George B. McClellan’s James River transports in 1862 to his role in negotiating the contentious prisoner cartel, Hill’s actions consistently provoked the ire of his superiors. He faced blame for the loss of “Special Orders No. 191” during the Maryland Campaign, and his clashes with Gen. Robert E. Lee supposedly convinced Lee to orchestrate Hill’s departure from the Army of Northern Virginia. Hill’s defiance continued as he opposed Lee over reinforcements for the Gettysburg Campaign. His transfer west to command a corps in the Army of Tennessee resulted in battlefield decisions at Chickamauga that sparked debate during and after the conflict, and his involvement in the 1863 generals’ revolt against Braxton Bragg strained his relationship with President Jefferson Davis. Hill ended the war in North Carolina.
Although his sharp tongue and pen often got him into problems—Lee once remarked that Hill “croaked”—many revered the polarizing figure for his unyielding spirit. Before the war, Hill shaped young minds as a professor at Davidson College. After the conflict, he left a legacy as president of the University of Arkansas and Georgia Military College. As an editor, writer, and commentator, he helped shape the Confederacy’s enduring legacy.
Hartley’s meticulously researched Confederate General D. H. Hill: A Military Life draws upon a wealth of archival records, newspapers, and other sources to reveal a far more nuanced man than traditional accounts suggest. Hill’s impact on Civil War history remains undeniable and unforgettable.
Witness to War: The Story of the Civil War Told By Those Who Lived It
by J. Mark Powell/Stackpole Books
The Civil War was one of the great events of United States history, and the widespread literacy of the mid-nineteenth century made it possible for an unprecedented number of Americans to record their thoughts, observations, descriptions, and opinions of the war. This book prints more than 500 letters—all of them in print for the first time—to reveal life during the Civil War.
Presented chronologically from Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 through his assassination in 1865, the letters follow the entire arc of the Civil War as it unfolds in real time through the words of everyday people—military and civilian, Union and Confederate, white and black, men, women, and even a few children. In their own words, they offer deeply held opinions about Lincoln, slavery, abolition, and the war; sometimes humorous observations on the course of the conflict and its leaders; poignant expressions of grief for the fallen and longing for the absent; and unforgettable descriptions of combat from First Manassas to Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and more.
Highlights from the letters include:
● “People about here talk of nothing now but pork and politics. Pork, however, will soon be all sold, and then we’ll hear of nothing but secession. South Carolina needs a good mauling.”
● “Them damn abolitionists are a blowing their horn, ‘Why don’t the army move?’ I would like to have some of them down here with a knapsack on that weighs about 200 lbs. I would run them on the double quick all day long.”
● “I don’t care how soon you desert and come home and your folks don’t care either. How I wish you would have taken my advice and stayed at home with me. Oh Joe, desert and come home.”
● “I was under the enemy’s fire for 7 days. You said something about the woods burning. They was burning some as the cannon fired them. We fought through the fires and whipped them back.”
● “The nation has met with a sore bereavement by the sudden death of our President. I hope they will find the vile assassin that perpetrated the hellish deed and make him stretch hemp on the first tree that they come to after they catch him.”
Witness to War lets the participants speak for themselves, offering a fresh, human perspective on a war that still holds and haunts us more than 150 years later.
Death or Victory: The Louisiana Native Guards and the Black Military’s Significance in the Civil War
by A.J.Cade/LSU Press
A Little Piece of Hell at Gettysburg: The Attack and Defense of the Rose Farm, July 2-3, 1863
by Scott T. Fink/Savas Beatie
Point Lookout, Maryland: The Largest Civil War Prison
by Robert E. Crickenberger Jr./Savas Beatie
Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln
by Matthew Pinsker/W. W. Norton & Company
Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend: Reconsidering Lincoln as Commander in Chief
by Kenneth W. Noe/LSU Press
A Mother’s Work: Mary Bickerdyke, Civil War-Era Nurse
by Megan VanGorder/The University of North Carolina Press
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