Civil War Stories
"Before there were The Killer Angels and Gods and Generals there was Andersonville. MacKinlay Kantor won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1955 for this novel, an epic account of the notorious prison camp in Macon County, Georgia. Though many of his characters are fictional, many are based on historical figures. Even some of the minor characters who appear as suffering prisoners of war are historical. Writing in the early fifties it was perhaps inevitable that Kantor drew subtle echoes of the Nazi concentration camps as he told this grim story of the greatest of Confederate war crimes. Kantor spent most of his life studying and writing about the Civil War. His emphasis was always on the small-town, ordinary citizens confronted with the horrors of Civil War.'
A Confederate soldier's trek brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign, as he makes his way to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains.
"Though the War Between the States is in its infancy, Richmond, Virginia, is not free of violent death, as two astute and courageous women from opposite ends of society discover when a grave is robbed, yielding the murdered body of a young slave woman. The silk scarf left carelessly with her body leads to suspects from every echelon of Richmond society -- and to more deaths. Narcissa Powers, a young white widow, begins to investigate and is soon aided by Judah Daniel, a free black herbalist and conjure woman. As the War's casualties begin to pour into the city and the "Dead March" echoes through the streets, the mystery deepens, and Narcissa and Judah must risk their lives to find the killer -- or killers -- and save the life of an innocent child."
For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women's prison.
But young Adair is sustained by a strong heart, and love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and she finds herself reciprocating his feelings in spite of herself. The major vows to return for her when the fighting is over, and before he rejoins the war, he leaves her with a precious gift: freedom. Weakened in body but not in spirit, Adair must now travel alone through dangerous unknown territory - an escaped 'enemy woman' surrounded by perils and misery.
Also available on audio.
A British immigrant to the United States is hired to serve as a confidential agent to Union General George McClellan and quickly finds himself investigating the death of a Union officer while the Civil War rages all around him
"A riveting, historically accurate account of one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War. This gritty novel of the brutal fight wall chronicles the lives of six Irish-Americans, revealing their sufferings and aspirations in both the Old World and the New World."
"...Jeff Shaara traces the lives, passions, and careers of the great military leaders from the first gathering clouds of the Civil War. Here is Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a hopelessly by-the-book military instructor and devout Christian who becomes the greatest commander of the Civil War; Winfield Scott Hancock, a captain of quartermasters who quickly establishes himself as one of the finest leaders of the Union army; Joshua Chamberlain, who gives up his promising academic career and goes on to become one of the most heroic soldiers in American history; and Robert E. Lee, never believing until too late that a civil war would ever truly come to pass."
On Film:
Historical fiction doesn't get any closer to home than this! The Gods and Generals movie is a must see for locals.
Spoiled Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara never stops loving the married Ashley Wilkes even as she faces the hardships of life during the Civil War and the changes brought about by Reconstruction.
"April 12, 1861. Bright, gutsy and young,Geneva Chatfield marries Nash Hart in Albemarle County, Virginia, the same day Fort Sumter's guns fire the start of the Civil War. Five days later she loses him as Nash joins the Confederate Army. Geneva, who is known as the best rider since Light Horse Harry Lee, cuts her hair, dons a uniform, enlists as 'Jimmy Chatfield,' then rides off to be with her beloved Nash. But sensitive Nash recoils in horror from the violence of war, while Geneva is invigorated by the chase and the fight. Can she be all the man her husband isn't? She'll sure as hell try. But there is a complication, and his name is Major "Mars" Vickers. This macho major, to his own shock and amazement, finds himself inexplicably attracted to the young soldier named 'Jimmy.' And this is only the beginning of a novel that moves with sureness and grace from the ferocity of battle to the struggle on the homefront, and brings passion and sly humor to a story of dawning love."
Duncan Gatewood, seventeen and heir to Gatewood Plantation, falls in love with Maggie, a mulatto slave, who conceives a son, Jacob. Maggie and Jacob are sold south, and Duncan is packed off to the Virginia Military Institute—he will eventually fight for Robert E. Lee. Another Gatewood slave, Jesse—whose love for Maggie is unrequited—escapes to find her. Jesse finds his freedom and enlists in Mr. Lincoln’s army; in time he will confront his former masters.
"The Battle of Gettysburg was fought for two dreams-- freedom, and a way of life. Memories, promises, and love were carried into the battle but what fell was shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty."
The Civil War threatens to destroy the romance between a Harvard-educated Cherokee Indian and the daughter of a Union officer, in a fast-paced novel... .
The sequel to The Proud and the Free.
Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal's fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and The Golden Age.
"It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation. Isolated in a ramshackle White House in the center of a proslavery city, Lincoln presides over a fragmenting government as Lee's armies beat at the gates. In this profoundly moving novel, a work of epic proportions and intense human sympathy, Lincoln is observed by his loved ones and his rivals. The cast of characters is almost Dickensian: politicians, generals, White House aides, newspapermen, Northern and Southern conspirators, amiably evil bankers, and a wife slowly going mad. Vidal's portrait of the president is at once intimate and monumental, stark and complex, drawn with the wit, grace, and authority of one of the great historical novelists."
Part of Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
"...the first novel in The Civil War Battles series based on the Brannon family of Culpeper County, Virginia. This initial volume describes the mood in the South prior to the outbreak of hostilities and follows one of the Brannon sons into the army and onto the scene of the first major battle of the war."
"At the heart of the story are spirited eighteen-year-old Constance Armstrong and her childhood friend, Frank Stringfellow. Constance, strong and intelligent, supports her family by running a bookstore. Two Rebels and a Yankee vie for her affection amidst the chaos of war. Frank, an irrepressible daredevil, becomes a scout and spy for J.E.B. Stuart and undertakes countless hair-raising adventures.
"On and off the battlefield, Marching Through Culpeper exposes the human side of such heroes as John Pelham, J.E.B. Stuart, A.P. Hill, and George Armstrong Custer. This rich tapestry of life in a war-torn community is a story of the human spirit and the power of love."
In July 1861, Harrison Grenville Raines investigates the cold-blooded killing of a Union major during the Northern forces' retreat from the Confederates at the Battle of Manassas
When their two sons meet as West Point cadets, the southern, plantation-owning Main family and the industrialist Hazards of Pennsylvania find their lives interlocked, as the nation moves toward Civil War.
Continues with Love and War and Heaven and Hell.
"These are the circumstances under which we meet sixteen-year-old Rhoda Strong, the daughter of a sweetly morose Scotsman and his formidable Lumbee wife. Rhoda is fiercely loyal to her family but is also fiercely in love with young Henry Berry Lowrie, who, although being hunted as an outlaw, is cut of heroic cloth and is, finally, a man whose moral fiber dictates his every move."
"At first glance, the storyline of Thomas Dyja's Play for a Kingdom story sounds corny: a Union company from Brooklyn encounters an Alabama company while on picket duty after the Battle of the Wilderness (May, 1864) and proceeds to challenge them to a series of baseball games before all hell breaks loose in Spottsylvania. The first-time novelist, however, has surprises up his sleeve, and the vividly described sporting matches set up a series of betrayals and double crosses which test the camaraderie of the Union soldiers, calling their commitment to the war effort into question."
(Amazon)
"The year is 1861. The American Civil War has just begun, and London arms dealer Daniel Albertson is becoming a very wealthy man as emissaries from both sides of the conflict rush to purchase his wares. The quiet dinner party held by Albertson and his beautiful wife seems remote indeed from the passions rending America. Yet investigator William Monk and his bride, Hester, sense growing tensions and barely concealed violence in this well-appointed mansion. For two of the guests are Americans, each vying to buy Albertson's armaments. Philo Trace, the Southerner, is both charming and intelligent, but a defender of slavery. Northerner Lyman Breelove is a disturbing blend of political zealot and personal reserve--to whom Albertson's teenage daughter has pledged her heart. Soon Monk and Hester's forebodings are fulfilled. For within this group, one is brutally murdered in a cruel ritualistic fashion, and two others disappear--along with Albertson's entire inventory of weapons."
"But this is impossible! Pryor was Barley's commander in one of the bloodiest of all Civil War battles. And Pryor was killed in battle in 1864, more than five years ago. His body was found and buried.
"So why is Barley so sure it's Pryor he sees in the remote town of Baddock? And, stranger still, why is Barley Newton found dead soon after the mysterious encounter?"
"Eight men from Kentucky--one barely old enough to shave--have signed a Confederate blood pact. Its code name is Lucifer; its mission is to burn this Yankee town (Manhattan) to the ground."
Based on an actual event, The Stalking-Horse is set on the eve of the American Civil War. Glynis Tryon's niece, Bronwen, has joined Pinkerton's Detective Agency. While on her first assignment in secessionist Alabama, two of her fellow agents are murdered. When word reaches Seneca Falls that Bronwen is in trouble, Glynis heads south and finds her niece caught in the midst of a diabolical plot designed to strike at the heart of the United States government.
