Clifford Roberts’ Top Ten Civil War Books

Originally published November 2020 · pp. 19–20

Clifford Roberts’ Top Ten Civil War Books These lists are personal by nature. 1. With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln Stephen B. Oates. Harper & Row, 1977. Oates’ popular history was a gift to me on my graduation from high school and this book started a lifetime study of Lincoln and the Civil War. There are now some 15,000 books about Abraham Lincoln. Harold Holzer is the best Lincoln interpreter alive today, but I am also a fan of Rich Lowry’s compact Lincoln Unbounded which, by Lincoln’s telling, creates an America where all people have the chance to raise, a nation of aspiration. 2. Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861– 1865 by Lillian Henderson, six volumes, Longino & Porter, 1960. As director of the Georgia Archives,

Henderson compiled this groundbreaking account of every infantry soldier from her state who served in the Confederate army. Similar roster compilations from virtually every state have since followed, but Henderson was the first to make war records easily accessible to thousands of family genealogists. 3. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion by Allen C. Guelzo. Alfred Knopf, 2013. The definitive account of the most important battle of the war. Lee brought 10,000 to 30,000 black slaves with his army of 80,000 white soldiers. Meade’s 85,000 men were, in large part, recent Irish and German immigrants. 4. William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country by James Lee McDonough. W.W. Norton, 2016. Grant and Sherman are justifiably and continually drawing first-rate biographers. McDonough wrote nine books on the western theater before tackling the most complex character of the war. 5. Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 by Albert Castel. University Press of Kansas, 1992. The western theater now gets its due attention for deciding the fate of the war. Castel’s

well-written book is the bible of Sherman’s 90-day campaign to capture Atlanta. “Co. Aytch”: A Side Show of the Big Show by Sam Watkins. Broadfoot Publishing, 1987 from 1882 Nashville edition. Broadfoot has a handsome edition of this classic first-person account of life in the 1st Tennessee Regiment. Watkins brings humor and vitality to life in a voluntary army. Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War by Winston Groom. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. The late Winston Groom will always be known for Forrest Gump, but he was also the author of a dozen first-rate books on American history. Shrouds of Glory is a poignant account of Hood’s ill-fated campaign. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997. So much great American fiction revolves around the Civil War. Frazier has written a page-turning classic. Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861 by David Detzer. Harcourt, Inc., 2004. Bull Run was organized chaos for both armies and Detzer captures the confusion as well as how the battle shaped the war to come. 10. A Carolinian Goes to War: The Civil War Narrative of Arthur Middleton Manigault edited by Lookwood Tower. University of South Carolina Press, 1983. General Manigault was a Charleston blueblood who led the only Palmetto brigade in the Army of Tennessee. After the surrender, he returned to his destroyed Santee River plantation and immediately wrote a thorough and opinionated account of his war experience. The draft sat on his desk for more than 100 years. W. Clifford Roberts is a Vanderbilt University graduate in Southern history. He is the president of the General Barton Stovall History and Heritage Association and co-author of Atlanta’s Fighting 42nd: Joseph Johnston’s “Old Guard” (Mercer University Press, 2020). He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.