Category: U.S. Civil War

David M. Potter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history “The Impending Crisis” (1976) is that rare historical work which, decades after its publication, remains not only authoritative but essential. Posthumously published in 1976 and completed by his Stanford colleague Don E. Fehrenbacher, the book distills nearly a lifetime of scholarship into a sweeping, judicious, and penetrating account of…

In the opening essay in this multi-authored book, Craig Symonds wonders aloud if there is an antonym for the word synergy, a particular combination of elements that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Symonds suggests that such a word, the opposite of synergy, would apply well to describing the relationship between…

Half a century ago some of the nation’s leading Civil War era historians put together this collection of essays seeking to explain, from a variety of perspectives (economic, military, political, diplomatic), why the North prevailed in the epic contest of wills between the states. We have arrived at the sesquicentennial of the great conflict and…

“Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order” by John Marszalek is military biography at its finest: lucidly written, thoroughly researched, admirably objective and offering penetrating insights into the subject’s motivations and foibles. There are three aspects to this book, all quite different, that made a lasting impression on me. First, to my surprise, Sherman’s tumultuous childhood…

“Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” was a commercial and critical smash hit from the moment it was released in 2007, and rightfully so. Author James Swanson weaves a detailed and enthralling narrative from first-hand accounts and documentary evidence. It’s trite to say that a popular work of historical non-fiction reads like a novel,…

Henry Halleck is probably the most consequential Civil War general that you’ve never heard of. In this slender 1962 biography by famed historian Stephen Ambrose, Halleck emerges from the shadows to take his rightful place in the pantheon of Union war generals. Halleck graduated third in his West Point class of 1839 and was immediately…

The first in a massive three volume set first published during the centennial anniversary of the War Between the States, Shelby Foote’s “The Civil War: A Narrative” is a timeless classic. Volume One traces what Foote sees as the first phase of the war from the opening shots at Fort Sumter, when most believed the…