Perpetual Reading List

    This is a perpetual Civil War reading list; there are simply too many books in print and being published about the Civil War for any reading list to be truly complete. The list is about no particular focus and in no particular order. Books are added at random times in random quantities. 

• All works must pertain to the Civil War or slavery directly. 
• If it is a piece of historic analysis, it must use a standardized citation system. Footnotes, endnotes, and in-text citations are all acceptable. If a work is not from a university press, a selection of citations will be tested for accuracy.
• Primary documents or an anthologies of such from politicians or military figures can be included. This includes speeches and letters.
• Autobiographies, memoirs, and personal accounts of people with lived experience during the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods can be included. This can include posthumously published diaries. 

    Links take you to bookshop.org, a website that allows you to purchase books online while supporting local bookstores. There is no compensation of any sort from these links (but not because I am morally above that). New additions to the list will be at the top.

If there is a book you think belongs in the list, leave it in the comments and it might get added!

Freedom's Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction by Stacey L. Smith

    Often viewed as conflict between the South and North, the Civil War was a national conflict that included a budding West. Smith looks at the populations most likely to be trafficked in California (Indigenous Californians, Black Americans, Chinese immigrants, and then immigrants as a whole)  and how slavery was practiced in California despite being admitted to the Union as a free state. The book also explores how that labor changed-- or didn't-- during Reconstruction.

Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country by Stephanie McCurry

    The majority of Southerners did not own slaves and the majority of enslavers held less than 10 people in bondage. There is a lot of scholarly focus on the experience on a large plantation and this book helps paint a more complete picture of the Southern relationship with slavery (plus, I almost always prefer regional histories to broader ones).

Soul by Soul: Life Inside an Antebellum Slave Market by Water Johnson

    Another book on the economics of the slave trade. Johnson focuses on the market in New Orleans and uses the voices of enslaved people to paint an idea of the lived experience. What role did enslaved people play in the transactions of their own person? How did they express agency and humanity during a dehumanizing process?

At War With King Alcohol by Megan L. Bever

    Don't underestimate how much of American history is fueled on alcohol. Bever explores the relationship between masculinity, alcohol, and the military in the Civil War. Takes into account the "medicinal" uses of alcohol at the time and how that complicated a soldier's relationship with it.

Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee by Elizabeth Brown Pryor

    A look at Robert E. Lee through his own words. Pryor uses personal letters as a framing device for this biography of a man who became a myth. Great for clarity on common misconceptions about Lee.

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

    A comprehensive if imperfect tome on the War of the Rebellion. It’s written in a narrative style so it’s easy to read but is packed full of well-researched information. Covers military and social history. Your Dad's favorite history book.

This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust

    Between 600,000 and 800,000 people died in the Civil War from dozens of causes. This book explores how the war changed America’s relationship with death and dying.

Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. DuBois

    First published in 1935, this book remains one of the authoritative volumes on the efforts of Black Americans in the war, in their own emancipation, and in the Reconstruction South.

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

    Grant’s memoir focuses on his military career and not his Reconstruction presidency. You see the people he fought alongside in the Mexican-American War become his enemies in the Civil War.

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh by Daina Ramey Berry

    The book goes tracks the average economic value of a slave in different life stages, from birth to death. Pairs these cold facts with the lived experiences of enslaved people. A hard but worthwhile read.

The Underground  Railroad Records by William Still

    William Still was a conductor on the Underground Railroad who kept some of the only written records of the people who used the railroad and the people who helped run it.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    Douglass wrote three autobiographies. This is the first, the smallest, and arguably the easiest to read. From a personal standpoint, this is the book that made me stop taking education for granted.

The Women’s Fight by Thavolia Glymph

    This book explores the role all women-- Black, white, North, South, free, enslaved-- played on the homefront and at war. Turns out, just like with every other war in American history, the Civil War could not have been fought without the efforts of women.

South to Freedom by Alice L. Baumgartner

    The majority for runaway slaves escaped to the North or Canada via the Underground Railroad but a small percentage went south to Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1837. This book covers that little-researched population.

Sisters and Rebels by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

    All three of the Lumpkin sisters were born after the War. Two left their former slaveholding family to move North  and become equal rights activists while the third stayed in the South and stayed true to the Cause. This book explores their relationship.