Meg Groeling’s Favorite Civil War Books

By Meg Groeling · Originally published November 2018 · p. 20

Meg Groeling 1861: The Civil War Awakening By Adam Goodheart (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), ISBN-13: 978-1-4000-32198, 496 pp. $28.95. Hardcover. When I read Goodheart’s 1861, I immediately became entranced by his ability to create such an in-depth portrait of a time period. Historians are always reminding each other about “context” and its importance. This book creates a complex context, albeit Northern in emphasis, of the months in the pivotal year of 1861. It is readable, funny, sometimes “present,” in a way I really enjoy. All that and Ellsworth! Huzzah! A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War. By Lesley J. Gordon (USA: LSU Press, 2014), ISBN-13: 9780807-1-57305, 408 pp. $49.95. Hardcover. Historian Gordon has been working on the delicate topic of cowardice, or perceived cowardice, for quite a while. I have some booklets of her early work, and her presentation of the smear campaign against the 11th New York at Bull Run by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is one I listen to on a regular basis. The topic is two-pronged: what might be perceived as cowardice can be a lack of appropriate team building on the part of the military or a lack of combat experience on the part of the soldiers. Understanding these points is incredibly necessary to understanding a war fought by volunteer soldiers. Gordon does her work of helping us to understand magnificently.

Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln’ and the Union’s War Governors. By Stephen D. Engle (USA: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), ISBN13: 978-1-4696-29339, 736 pp. $49.95. Hardcover. I love Civil War politics, and this book is all about the politics of running a war. Without the support of the governors of the Union states, President Lincoln could not have gotten supplies, men, and policies together to win that war. From empathetic governors who went to see the volunteers from their states to those who were on the fence about the war, all eventually learned to work together and with the Lincoln administration to support the largest army ever fielded to that date. The relationship between state and federal government was forever transformed, and the story is a demandingly delightful read. Shooting Lincoln: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and the Race to Photograph the Story of the Century. By Nicholas J. C. Pistor (Boston: De Capo Press, 2017), ISBN-13: 978-03068-24692, 272 pp. $36.50. Hardcover. One of my favorite threads of the larger story of the American Civil War is journalism—embedded journalists, partisan publications, and war photography. The name Brady is well known, and Alexander Gardener is as well, but they are always pictured as feuding artists who were in direct competition. Pistor sheds a great deal of light on this topic, clearing up a lot of misunderstandings. Luckily for the war, both men covered it. Brady took the famous portraits he is justifiably so famous for, while Gardner showed us the environments in which battles were fought as well as their bloody aftermath. If the topic of photo-journalism is of any interest, this book is one that should be read at least once. I have read it three times so far. All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay from Lincoln to Roosevelt. By John Taliaferro (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), ISBN-13: 978-1-416597346, 688 pp. $48.25 Hardcover. I love John Hay. I think he is one of the most interesting men in American history, but I have come to realize that he is a member of the historical B-List. Much as I wish this was not the case, I cannot delude myself any longer. Nevertheless, this biography does much toward putting Hay at least a little higher on that list. Hay is the proverbial “fly on the wall” of history from the 1860 presidential election to the years before WWI. “Hay’s friends are a who’s who of the era: Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, Henry Adams, Henry James, and virtually every president, sovereign, author, artist, power broker, and robber baron of the Gilded Age,” says one review, and I could not say it better. I hope reading this book gives a greater appreciation of one of America’s most fascinating men. So yes, I love John Hay. Former middle school math teacher, Meg Groeling is now a full-time Civil War historian. She received her Masters in Civil War History from American Public University in 2016. She writes for the blog Emerging Civil War, has published Aftermath of Battle with SavasBeatie Books, and is finishing up her long-anticipated biography of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, First Fallen. She also reviews books and tries to grow roses in drought-stricken California.