tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073Wed, 06 May 2026 22:30:08 +0000BooknotesBook ReviewsBook NewsReviews - Campaigns and BattlesReviews - Theater - WestReviews - Theater - Trans MississippiReviews - Theater - EastReference Books/Research MaterialsReviews - Civil War SocietyReviews - Unit HistoriesReviews - BiographyReviews - NavalReviews - PoliticsComing SoonBook SnapshotsReviews - Diaries/ Letters/ MemoirsAuthorsReading ListsReviews - Guides and Map StudiesPublishersReviews - Indian ConflictsReviews - Theater - Far WestInterviewsReviews - Essay CollectionMagazines and JournalsReviews - Civil War EconomyFive books on ... seriesReviews - CW MedicineSnapshots from the CollectionTexas Revolution / U.S. - Mexican WarReviews - Photographic StudiesReviews - Archaeology/Material CultureReviews - Environmental HistoryNon-fiction American Civil War book reviews, commentary, industry news, interviews, reading lists, and profiles of upcoming releases.https://cwba.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)Blogger3914125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-6157040651236917339Tue, 05 May 2026 16:56:56 +00002026-05-05T09:56:56.257-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Reasons We Fight: Tejanos and American Wars, 1836-1972 by Alex Mendoza (OU Press, 2026). Starting with the Texas Revolution and ending with the exit of U.S. forces from Vietnam, Alex Mendoza's Reasons We Fight: Tejanos and American Wars, 1836-1972 examines what motivated Texans of Mexican descent to fight for the United States. In the process, Mendoza "discovers a complex https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/05/booknotes-reasons-we-fight.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-915478751083783624Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:00:00 +00002026-04-30T00:00:00.116-07:00Coming Soon Scheduled for MAY 20261: • Many a Hand: Michigan and the Civil War by Roger Rosentreter. • The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War by Paul Quigley. • Henry Eustace McCulloch: Texas Ranger, Legislator, Civil War General by David Paul Smith. • Retreat from Victory: The Battle of Malvern Hill and the End of the Seven Days, July 1, 1862 by Francishttps://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/coming-soon-may-26-edition.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-4960483363782931856Mon, 27 Apr 2026 17:11:03 +00002026-04-27T10:11:03.499-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • The Battle of Fort Stedman: Lee's Forlorn Hope, March 25, 1865 by Edward B. McCaul, Jr. (McFarland, 2026). Given the advanced nature of the Union siege lines on the Petersburg front in 1864-65, it often seemed like Grant and Meade were overcautious in retaining so many men in the trenches during their series of offensives south and west of the city. Clearly, they feared a https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-battle-of-fort-stedman.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-8862498919368901674Fri, 24 Apr 2026 16:26:00 +00002026-04-24T09:27:51.044-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Deserter Declarations: Letters from North Carolinians Who Abandoned Their Confederate Units edited by Judkin Browning (UGA Press, 2026). It's easy to see why Judkin Browning selected North Carolina for his study of deserter appeals. In addition to his earlier published work on the Civil War in the state, North Carolina was a natural choice given that, among the Confederate stateshttps://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-deserter-declarations.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-7730190852406468203Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:24:27 +00002026-04-22T09:24:27.161-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans by Neil P. Chatelain (Savas Beatie, 2026). From the description: During the Civil War, "(t)housands of ships took part, fighting battles alongside the armies and patrolling the globe. The actions of more than 100,000 sailors on both sides impacted military, naval, economic, and diplomatic aspectshttps://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-this-great-contest-afloat.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-1151679474438232398Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:11:00 +00002026-04-20T08:11:19.735-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • The First Pariah State: How the Proslavery Confederacy Menaced the World by Robert E. Bonner (Princeton UP, 2026) From the description: "In 1861, proslavery secessionists severed ties with the United States, launched the Confederacy, and readied their new government to join the international community as a sovereign nation." In The First Pariah State, historian Robert Bonner "https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-first-pariah-state.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-8110365548233318912Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:29:00 +00002026-04-18T08:29:17.245-07:00Book NewsWithout a doubt, the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte was felt in both popular and military circles for a good chunk of the nineteenth century following the French emperor's final defeat and exile. His impact on American officers is mentioned countless times in Civil War biographies and military history books and articles, yet writers only rarely delve into particular examples or analyze the https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/book-news-napoleons-long-shadow.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-1513329073042409190Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:03:00 +00002026-04-16T11:03:45.024-07:00Book ReviewsReviews - Civil War Society[A Desperate Fight: The Lives of Louisiana's Confederate Soldiers by Henry B. Motty (Louisiana State University Press, 2026). Hardcover, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:x,183/272. ISBN:978-0-8071-8615-2. $50] Themes associated with the military, social, and psychological ties cemented between the Civil War home and fighting fronts, both North and South, have been heavily https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/review-desperate-fight-lives-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-8751533122527562554Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:01:00 +00002026-04-15T21:41:41.335-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Stonewall Jackson’s Winter Operations: The Raids Against the C&O Canal and the Bath-Romney Campaign, December 1861 to February 1862 by Timothy R. Snyder (Savas Beatie, 2026). Timothy Snyder’s Stonewall Jackson’s Winter Operations is the second major study of Jackson's Romney Expedition. It comes more than three decades after Thomas Rankin's Stonewall Jackson's Romney https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-stonewall-jacksons-winter.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-1930771913744283263Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:16:00 +00002026-04-14T09:16:51.539-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Civil War Photo Forensics: Investigating Battlefield Photographs Through a Critical Lens by Scott Hippensteel (U Tenn Press, 2026). Of the new Civil War book authors who have emerged in recent times, Scott Hippensteel is one of my favorites. He always selects topics that are far from ordinary [his previous works examine Civil War battlefield geology, sand's impact on military https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-civil-war-photo-forensics.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-1428866603100262923Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:45:00 +00002026-04-13T07:45:23.067-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Mercy in Disaster: Abby Hopper Gibbons’s Journals and Letters from Four Years of Civil War Nursing edited by Angela G. Schear (UGA Press, 2026). From the description: Edited by Angela Schear, Mercy in Disaster "is about the forgotten nurse in America’s signature, iconic photograph of Civil War wounded: abolitionist Abby Hopper Gibbons. Hung in museums large and small, pictured https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-mercy-in-disaster.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-5840248934846563229Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:49:00 +00002026-04-10T09:49:00.481-07:00Book ReviewsReviews - Politics[William Henry Seward's Quest to Save the Nation During the Secession Winter (November 1860-April 1861) by C. Evan Stewart (Twelve Tables Press, 2026). Hardcover, photos, illustrations, chapter notes. Pages:xiii,205. ISBN:978-1-946074-46-1. $20.95] As the momentous 1860 Republican National Convention approached, the general expectation was that New York's William Henry Seward would be the https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/review-william-henry-sewards-quest-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-954626442871052215Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:14:00 +00002026-04-08T09:14:34.597-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend: Reconsidering Lincoln as Commander in Chief by Kenneth W. Noe (LSU Press, 2026). From the description: Kenneth Noe’s Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend "boldly questions the long-accepted notion that the sixteenth president was an almost-perfect commander in chief, more intelligent than his generals." Blindness toward Lincoln's flaws as https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-abraham-lincoln-and-heroic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-5353611225631317438Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:25:00 +00002026-04-07T10:25:01.713-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Confederate General D. H. Hill: A Military Life by Chris J. Hartley (Savas Beatie, 2026). The two big Confederate Hills (A.P. and D.H.) were both undeniably fighting generals, but they also possessed difficult personalities and ended the war with decidedly mixed overall records. Though their early exploits fostered rapid promotion within the army, the further up the chain of https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-confederate-general-d-h-hill.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-7168041763312511436Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:52:00 +00002026-04-06T09:52:43.598-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Mollie Brumley's Civil War: Surviving the Guerrilla War in Arkansas by Theodore Catton (OU Press, 2026). From the description: "Mollie Brumley, a thirteen-year-old orphan, was living on a farm in the mountainous Ozarks of northwest Arkansas when the Civil War broke out. In a borderland region on the northern periphery of slavery and the western edge of white settlement, her https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-mollie-brumleys-civil-war.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-5429479584518508731Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:13:00 +00002026-04-04T08:13:57.187-07:00The pattern of having one Earl Hess title in the reading pile and two more in the immediate pipeline continues! My review copy of Shattered Courage arrived last month from University Press of Kansas, and Civil War Camps and Soldier Health (which has been mentioned here on the site before) will be published by Kent State University Press next month. In October, LSU Press is releasing Hess's https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/book-news-more-hess-on-horizon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-3567180465054265453Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:45:00 +00002026-04-03T08:45:41.282-07:00New Arrival: • Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles by Michael D. Becker (U Tenn Press, 2026). Decisions on Western Waters is a pretty major departure from the standard Command Decisions in America's Civil War series volume. Whereas every earlier installment, numbering well over two dozen and counting, addressed a single campaign or battle, https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/booknotes-decisions-on-western-waters.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-599856487751079520Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:51:00 +00002026-04-02T18:51:00.059-07:00Book ReviewsReviews - Campaigns and BattlesReviews - Theater - Far WestReviews - Theater - Trans Mississippi[Desert Empire: The 1862 New Mexico Campaign by Patrick Kelly-Fischer and Phillip S. Greenwalt (Savas Beatie, 2026). Softcover, 5 maps, photos, illustrations, integrated driving tour, appendix section, orders of battle, reading list. Pages main/total:xxviii,131/191. ISBN:978-1-61121-775-9. $16.95] The Confederacy's early-war New Mexico Campaign is one of those Civil War operations that seems https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/04/review-desert-empire-1862-new-mexico.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-3046564847544515067Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:24:00 +00002026-03-31T08:24:36.187-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • 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, 2026). It shouldn't surprise anyone that the Gettysburg literature hosts a number of microhistories of micro-sectors of the battlefield. One of the better known examples of these is Elwood Christ's "Over a Wide, Hot...Crimson Plain": The Struggle for the https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-little-piece-of-hell-at.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-8636253837152265648Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:14:00 +00002026-03-30T07:14:43.232-07:00Coming Soon Scheduled for APR 20261: • Deserter Declarations: Letters from North Carolinians Who Abandoned Their Confederate Units ed. by Judkin Browning. • Mercy in Disaster: Abby Hopper Gibbons’s Journals and Letters from Four Years of Civil War Nursing ed. by Angela Schear. • Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles by Michael Becker. • Lost Souls of https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/coming-soon-april-26-edition.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-6836922662608220065Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:23:00 +00002026-03-28T09:23:30.889-07:00Book NewsYou might recall that I liked Ethan Rafuse's From the Mountains to the Bay: The War in Virginia, January-May 1862 (Kansas, 2023) quite a bit. I remarked at the time that it had the hallmarks of the beginning of a series (including a cliffhanger ending) but nowhere inside was there even a hint that future volumes were planned. Happily, it turns out to be the case that The War in Virginia is indeedhttps://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/rafuses-war-in-virginia-series-continues.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-5225104350116803572Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:25:00 +00002026-03-27T09:25:04.201-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Gettysburg Postcards: An Illustrated Guide by Richard A. Sauers (McFarland, 2026). I have no idea when the peak period for collecting Civil War stamps, currency, and assorted ephemera might have been. In the 20+ years of this site's existence, I can't remember any reference books associated with those things turning up in my mail. I do recall a fairly recent scholarly study of https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-gettysburg-postcards.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-848059297855401586Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:36:00 +00002026-03-25T12:35:52.864-07:00Book ReviewsReviews - Biography[Soldier of the South: Lieutenant General Richard H. Anderson at War and Peace by Edward J. Hagerty (University of South Carolina Press, 2026). Hardcover, 7 maps, illustration, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:vii,368/436. ISBN:978-1-64336-622-7. $36.99] South Carolina's Richard Heron Anderson was a high-ranking general in the Confederacy's premier field army, holding a https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/review-soldier-of-south-lieutenant.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-8368346849200806284Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:14:00 +00002026-03-23T08:14:00.119-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Buckeye Odyssey: A Civil War History of the 82nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Through the Stories of Six Men by Samuel H. Fink (McFarland, 2026). Recruitment for what would become the 82nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment began in the fall of 1861, the volunteers coming from seven Buckeye counties grouped north and northeast of Columbus. Mustering into service at the end of that year,https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-buckeye-odyssey.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-224381087819734998Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:20:00 +00002026-03-20T09:22:23.086-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Little Round Top at Gettysburg: A Reassessment of July 2, 1863 by Joseph Michael Boslet (Savas Beatie, 2026). From the description: "Little Round Top. Three words that resonate in American military history. It was there, at one of the most visited sites on the Gettysburg battlefield, that Confederates under Maj. Gen. John B. Hood attempted to turn the left flank of the Army of https://cwba.blogspot.com/1969/12/booknotes-little-round-top-at-gettysburg.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0