Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Let me see your reading list on US History, and Southern/CSA history.

i may read some this summer and want to brush up US history and southern history (pre, during, and post civil war)...

I want to see what you guys say and see if i have missed naything

One of the best books on US history I've read in the past few years is "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose. It tells the story of the Corps of Discovery from Meriwether Lewis' perspective. A fascinating story and a good read.

These may be of interest to you:

Why the North Won the Civil War edited by Donald- 5 essays which discuss 5 major factors of the North's victory

The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant- these aren't the memoirs (personally I don't care for his memoirs by comparison)- see if you can find the papers at a library. There are many, many volumes. They are each huge- oversized, heavy books, big enough to narrate a war. Personally I liked volume 7 the best, with the couple before it & the couple after it pretty interesting too. These volumes contain all the letters, messages, & wires to & from Grant to & from his Union army staff during the war. I love primary resources. you can watch the civil war unfold firsthand in these pages. Worth a look, IMO. Probably they are only at big libraries.

It's old, but still the all-time best, IMHO...Douglas Southall Freeman's four volume Lee. Won the Pulitzer back in the 30s when they still gave them out for content rather than PC considerations. Beautifuly written, some southern bias, but pretty objective. The follow up, three volume Lee's Lieutenants is also wonderful reading.

Of course, Shelby Foote's three volume history of the war is an essential.

Hood's Advance and Retreat....he wrote better than he generaled.

Jones' Ranger Mosby.

Destruction and Reconstruction, by Dick Taylor, one of the finest Southern generals. A gifted and perceptive strategist, and a great writer.

Forrest's memoir....First with the Most.

Grant's and Sherman's memoirs are both pretty good.....self-serving, but what memoir isn't?

That should last you the summer

A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin
The Final Days by Woodward and Bernstein
Patton: A Genius for War by Carlo D'Este
Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose
Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait by Emanuel Hertz

Primary sources: the South getting grilled by the North during Reconstruction, free on the web:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject:%22Southern%20States%20--%20History%201865-1877%22