Paul Taylor’s Top Ten Civil War Books

Originally published November 2020 · p. 29

Paul Taylor’s Top Ten Civil War Books Picking ten favorite Civil War books out of hundreds or even thousands is no easy task. Here are ten that are not necessarily “the best of the best,” but ten that left a significant positive impression on me and consequently, have remained prominent in my Civil War thinking. 1. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command by Edwin B. Coddington. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968. Coddington’s masterpiece remains in my opinion the best single-volume study of the entire Gettysburg Campaign. Chock full of logistical analysis as well as tactical narrative, Coddington’s work begins six months prior to the 3-day battle and ends with the challenges Meade faced in pursuing Lee. 2. The Campaign of Chancellorsville: A Strategic and Tactical Study by John Bigelow Jr.. Yale University

Press, 1910. Though now over a century old, this massive tome remains one of the granddaddys of great Civil War strategic and tactical narratives. Bigelow was to Chancellorsville studies what John Batchelder was to Gettysburg. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War by Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones. University of Illinois Press, 1983. A masterly single-volume history that emphasizes strategy over tactics. Valuable to both novices and serious students of the war. Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North by Jennifer L. Weber. Oxford University Press, 2006. Northern homefront / dissent / politics has been my leading field of interest over the past decade. Weber’s deeply-researched 2006 study of anti-war Democrats served to refute Copperhead-scholar Frank Klement’s long-standing argument that claimed anti-Lincoln activists and their “secret societies” were little more than paper-based conspiracies. Moreover, high-level Republicans knew it, according to Klement. Weber’s research (as well as my own) showed otherwise. The subversion was real and the average, pro-Lincoln man on the street had every reason at the time to believe in it and act accordingly. The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union by George M. Fredrickson. University of Illinois Press, 1965. A timeless classic that discusses how some two dozen Northern intellectuals viewed the Civil War’s impact on society and its culture. An important social history work that is eminently accessible for both scholars and armchair historians. Confederate Florida: The Road to Olustee by William H. Nulty. University of Alabama Press, 1990. Having grown up in the Sunshine State, the Civil War in Florida became one of my favorite sub-topics early on and remains so today. Nulty’s work focuses on the last two years of Florida’s struggle. His superb scholarship and writing pertaining to the North’s interest in the state as well as his tactical narrative regarding the 1864 Olustee Campaign make it indispensable for students of the war in Florida.

7. Sherman’s Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860– 1865 edited by Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin. University of North Carolina Press, 1999. The editors collected over 400 of Sherman’s wartime letters from a number of antiquated sources in which the earlier editors occasionally edited Sherman’s letters and therefore his full thoughts and meanings. Simpson and Berlin have combined Sherman’s correspondence into one updated, masterfully-annotated volume featuring the entirety of the general’s letters. One of the truly essential Civil War primary sources. 8. Lincoln’s Darkest Year: The War in 1862 with The Great Task Remaining: The Third Year of Lincoln’s War (taken together), by William Marvel. Houghton Mifflin, 2008 and 2010. William Marvel is a favorite Civil War writer of mine. His prose flows off the page like honey. These two revisionists works focus on 1862 and 1863, respectively. So, I have taken the liberty to combine them here into one entry as one complements the other. You may not agree with Marvel’s conclusions, however, you will not struggle reading his work, either. 9. The Union War by Gary Gallagher. Harvard University Press, 2011. In a brilliant analysis utilizing scores of primary sources, Gallagher illustrates that Union volunteers rushed to the enlistment office first off and foremost to preserve their glorious Union. He reminds us that emancipation was a secondary concern enacted primarily as a war measure two years later, in spite of contemporary efforts to portray its primacy. 10. Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander edited by Gary Gallagher. University of North Carolina Press, 1989. This manuscript, thought lost but rediscovered by Gallagher, was written by Alexander years before his Military Memoirs of a Confederate and then only for his immediate family and friends. A wonderfully detailed and candid primary source from a premier Confederate artillerist involved in nearly all the Eastern theatre’s great battles from First Manassas through Appomattox.

Paul Taylor is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, a retired Insurance professional, and an award-winning author of eight books pertaining to the American Civil War. His works include “Old Slow Town”: Detroit during the Civil War; “The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known”: The North’s Union Leagues in the American Civil War; and the just-published, “My Dear Nelly”: The Selected Civil War Letters of General Orlando M. Poe to His Wife Eleanor. He resides in Michigan.