Meg Groeling’ Top Favorite Civil War Books

Originally published November 2020 · p. 25

Meg Groeling’ Top Favorite Civil War Books When the request for a list of “favorite books” came to those who review for CWN, I thought here was an excellent, if unexpected, chance to tell readers what great new books are coming our way. It seems like a unique time in history for many reasons, and few news broadcasts go by without mentioning the American Civil War in some manner. Historians have risen to the occasion, giving readers new books with new interpretations of an “old war.” The ones I have mentioned here are magnificent in scope, depth, and understanding. Please consider them as worthy of your reading time. Everyone who loves the American Civil War has at least ten favorite books. I have divided my ten into two groups. The first grouping contains old favorites, sometimes given to us by someone we love, with an inscription that renders the book priceless. For me, this category is filled by the set of Bruce Catton books, specifically, the trilogy A Stillness at Appomattox that belonged to my dad. Another musthave is a good novel. This choice is personal, of course. Mine is Margaret Leech’s Reveille in Washington, where I first met John Hay, George Nicolay, and Elmer Ellsworth. Some consider fiction as not belonging in a list like this, but sinking into a wellknown, much-loved novel is too much of a pleasure to ignore. Two others that are only genre-specific are a good map book, preferably covering the entire war in both time and geography, and a good picture book. My first map collection was the West Point Atlas of the Civil War. Maps are improving rapidly, so look at some recent publications, or build your own set of battle-orwar theater-specific map books. No matter what you choose, maps are a must-have. My father also had an old Matthew Brady photo book. He gave it to me and I have added other versions to the collection. Some newer, colorized images are amazing, but no one forgets their first experience with those Gardner images from Antietam that set New York on its ear “back in the day.” Finally, if you do not have a sturdy version of Walt Whitman’s poems that includes Drum Taps, you should get one. Reading poetry does not reflect on a reader in any negative way, rather the opposite. The American Civil War defined a generation of men and women, and no one writes the truth of this better than Whitman.

He will touch your soul. The next group of five books is not old at all. In fact, it is very new, one of them just a couple of months old. It is a grouping that I think is important, especially when it comes to comparing the military and political doings of the 1860s with what is happening today. In no particular order: Gathering to Save a Nation by Stephen D. Engle. University of North Carolina Press, 2016, is such an insightful book. In this intricate work, Engle looks at the men who governed the loyal states during the Civil War, and their efforts to support the President, their constituents, their parties, and their state’s volunteer soldiers in the field. While providing detailed and engaging portraits of wartime governors, their state-level actions, and their cooperation, Engle brings into new focus the era’s complicated political history and shows how the War tested and transformed the relationship between state and federal governments. When I finished this book, I felt like I had a much greater understanding of how a president works with states in a time of crisis, something helpful in times of war, weather, and pandemics. Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer. Simon & Schuster, 2020. This is another book that helped me understand today’s politics better for having read it. Widmer has a voice I particularly enjoy, and this book tackles the changes in Abraham Lincoln as he stepped from the Illinois prairie to the main stage of Washington, D.C. “Growing into the job” was not something I had considered much until I read this book. Of course, I had heard the phrase applied to our current executive, but Widmer’s nuanced framework, while Lincolnspecific, applies to today as well. Again, a timely read. In The Field of Blood by Joanne Freeman. Picador, 2019. Author Joanne B. Freeman draws back the curtains on the story of physical violence on the U.S. Congress floor. Antebellum Washington was rife with conflict. When debate broke down, Congress members drew pistols, waved Bowie knives, threatened, flipped desks, and attempted allout Congressional brawls. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery. Author Freeman’s dramatic accounts tell a larger story of how fisticuffs and journalism, and the powerful emotions they elicited, raised tensions between North and South and led toward war. One result is a new understanding of American democracy’s workings and the bonds of Union on the eve of their greatest peril. Another is that the alert reader will immediately notice that Congress has only nominally cleaned up its act and that yesterday’s pressures are just as intense today. Again, a very timely read. When It Was Grand by LeeAnna Keith. Hill and Wang, 2020. This is the story of a few northern Radical Republicans who helped found a new political party and turn it toward ending slavery. I was fully aware of the checkered past of the Democrats, and I knew something about how both parties seem to “flip” stances on many issues beginning in the Cold War. Keith’s volume offers a new look at figures ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Brown to the elected politicians who left the Whig Party to join up with more progressive thinkers. It also gives readers another chance to look at Abraham Lincoln’s political evolution. Sometimes critical, sometimes partner, Lincoln became the best-known Republican in America. Just when this nation is once again wondering what Republicans and Democrats stand for these days, here is a book that can set a firm foundation of knowledge upon which to build. Have I mentioned, “timely read?” The Black Heavens by Brian R. Dirck. Southern Illinois University Press, 2019. The Black Heavens can be read along with Lincoln on the Verge. Just when one thinks books about Lincoln could not offer anything new, these two books come along. The Black Heavens deals explicitly with the deaths Lincoln endured during his lifetime and how they were part of what formed his character of compassion and support for individuals in need of succor and a nation needing the same. Author Dirck tackles the historiographical view of Lincoln as a tragic figure by presenting his response to death and mourning within the social, cultural, and political context of the times. Lincoln lost his mother and sister early in his life. Later he lost his sons Eddy (1850) and Willy (1862). He dealt with the combat deaths of two of his best friends, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth and Colonel Edward Baker, early in the war. The author elegantly handles Lincoln’s evolution from a bereaved child to a commander in chief who gave orders that sent an unprecedented number of Americans to their deaths. The Black Heavens adds immeasurably to our 21st century understanding of America’s sixteenth president. It, too, is timely. Meg Groeling received her Master’s Degree in Military History, with a Civil War emphasis, in 2016, from American Public University. Savas Beatie published her first book, The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead, in the fall of 2015. Her biography, First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s First Civil War Hero. It will be published by Savas Beatie in 2020. She is a book reviewer for LSU, Civil War News, and a regular contributor to the blog Emerging Civil War. She lives in Hollister, California, in a 1928 bungalow with her husband, her cats, and a lot of books and roses.