Campaigns and Battles
Rufus Recommends:
So many battles, so little space;
1. Landscape Turned Red, by Stephen Sears....The Battle of Antietam, what led up to it and it's aftermath. In my opinion, the best single book on one battle available. It's a great read. Many recent books about a campaign or a battle get so unvolved in minute military detail that the story gets lost. Not here.
2. The Confederacy's Last Hurrah, by Wiley Sword....Tells the story of the 1864 campaign by John Bell Hood in Tennessee. The battles of Franklin and Nashville are the main focus. Two other books by Sword, Shiloh, and Mountains Touched With Fire, about the Chattanooga campaign are, also good, but this was my favorite.
3. Chancellorsville, by Ernest Ferguson....To me, the best book on that military masterpiece by Lee and Jackson.
4. High Tide at Gettysburg, by Glenn Tucker.... I still haven't found a more enjoyable book that tells the whole story of Gettysburg and I have tried. There are books that deal with one of the the three days better, but none that takes the battle as a whole and makes it understandable as well as Tucker's book. David Martin's Gettysburg July 1, Harry Pfanz's Gettysburg, the Second Day and Pickett's Charge, by George Stewart are the best for more details about each day. All three will give you all the detail you want without losing the story.
5. Monitor, by James Tertius DeKay....The best of many good books about the naval battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac.
Also:
Confederate Goliath, by Rod Gragg....Excellent book about the 1865 battle for Fort Fisher and Wilmington N.C.
Stones River, by James McDonough....This account of the Stones River campaign is not as detailed as some more recent books, but it's much more readable.
Days of Defiance, by Maury Klein. If you can find Bruce Catton's The Coming Fury, it tells the story of the build up to Fort Sumter better, but if not Klein's book is a good second.
Shiloh, by Larry Daniel.... There are two other good books on Shiloh, Wiley Sword's and James Mcdonough's. If you're going to pick one, take Larry Daniel's. It's the best read.
To the Gates of Richmond, by Stephen Sears....Makes sense of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. Sears was so good at describing McClellan's foul ups at Antietam, he decided to do the same for Little Mac on the Peninsula.
Rufus Rejects:
Grant Wins the War, by James Arnold....Makes the case that Grant's victory at Vicksburg was the crucial military campaign of the war. The arguement isn't bad, the book is. Dull!
The Gettysburg Campaign, by Edwin Coddington....I know! It's supposed to be a classic. Three times I tried to read it. Three times I ended up like George Pickett on July 3rd. I just don't like the writing.