tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:14:39 +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)Blogger3906125tag: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)6tag: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)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-3836488443957120275Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:17:22 +00002026-03-18T10:17:22.816-07:00Book ReviewsReviews - Archaeology/Material CultureReviews - Guides and Map Studies[Tar Heel Civil War Flags: The Collection of the North Carolina Museum of History by Tom Belton (McFarland, 2026). Softcover, photos, illustrations, footnotes, appendix, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xv,397/431. ISBN:978-1-4766-9649-2. $49.95] More than a quarter-century ago now, back in 1999, the North Carolina Museum of History ran a public exhibition titled North Carolina and the https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/review-tar-heel-civil-war-flags.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-3002542060254763021Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:51:00 +00002026-03-17T09:51:52.831-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Desert Empire: The 1862 New Mexico Campaign by Patrick Kelly-Fischer and Phillip S. Greenwalt (Savas Beatie, 2026). Though a small campaign in terms of the numbers involved on both sides, the 1861-62 attempt by Confederate forces to seize control of the vast Desert Southwest and contest U.S. control of Lower California to the west and the gold fields of Colorado to the north https://cwba.blogspot.com/1969/12/booknotes-desert-empire.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-8173852784554131692Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:35:00 +00002026-03-16T08:35:09.634-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Shattered Courage: Soldiers Who Refused to Fight in the American Civil War by Earl J. Hess (UP of Kansas, 2026). A number of studies have examined the Civil War combat experience and its ground-level aspects of both bravery and cowardice. The most recent scholarship has widened the approach to encompass cultural and societal themes of masculinity and the ways in which battlefieldhttps://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-shattered-courage.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-1046814210768786309Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:43:00 +00002026-03-13T08:43:08.767-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey by Walt Bachman (Univ of Neb Press, 2026). This is a paperback reprint, the first edition being a hardcover released by a different publisher back in 2013. From the description: "Born into slavery in free territory, Joseph Godfrey died widely reviled for his controversial role in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862." https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-northern-slave-black-dakota.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-1243736715532555686Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:57:00 +00002026-03-11T09:57:49.276-07:00Book ReviewsReviews - BiographyReviews - Civil War SocietyReviews - Unit Histories[Texan in Blue: Captain Francis Asbury Vaughan of the First Texas Cavalry, USA by Richard B. McCaslin and J. Wayne Stewart (Texas State Historical Association, 2025). Paperback, maps, photos, illustrations, appendix section, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:viii,119/189. ISBN:978-1-62511-090-9. $29.95] While upwards of 70,000 men joined Confederate forces during the Civil War, https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/review-texan-in-blue-captain-francis.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-7547822751132221937Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:14:00 +00002026-03-10T09:14:05.948-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Between Worlds: John A. Broadus, the Southern Baptist Seminary, and the Prospects of the New South by Eric C. Smith (LSU Press, 2026). From the description: "John A. Broadus (1827–95) was a highly influential Southern Baptist leader, preacher, scholar, and educator during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He cofounded the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-between-worlds.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-6805741068552170764Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:28:00 +00002026-03-09T09:28:10.645-07:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Lincoln's Minister of Mystery: Henry Shelton Sanford and Civil War Intelligence by David D. Perry (McFarland, 2026). By the time Abraham Lincoln appointed Connecticut native Henry Shelton Sanford to the post of U.S. Minister to Belgium in 1861, Sanford had already established a foreign service career dating back to 1847. Undoubtedly, that prior experience served him well in https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-lincolns-minister-of-mystery.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16471073.post-3568955231888596838Fri, 06 Mar 2026 17:53:00 +00002026-03-06T09:53:36.531-08:00BooknotesNew Arrival: • Death or Victory: The Louisiana Native Guards and the Black Military’s Significance in the Civil War by A.J. Cade (LSU Press, 2026). From the description: "Originating as a division of the New Orleans Home Guards in May 1861, the Native Guards consisted of free Black and Creole men who leveraged the city’s established military customs to gain entry into the Home Guards. Although https://cwba.blogspot.com/2026/03/booknotes-death-or-victory.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (DW@CWBA)0