Disunion: Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War from Lincoln's Election to the Emancipation Proclamation


Ted Widmer - 2013
     Since its debut, The New York Times' acclaimed web journal entitled 'Disunion' has published hundreds of original articles and won multiple awards, including "Best History Website" from the New Media Institute and the History News Network. Following the chronology of the secession crisis and the Civil War, the contributors to Disunion, who include modern scholars, journalists, historians, and Civil War buffs, offer contemporary commentary and assessment of the Civil War as it unfolded chronologically. Now, this commentary has been gathered together and organized in one volume. In The New York Times: Disunion, historian Ted Widmer has curated more than 100 articles that span events beginning with Lincoln's presidential victory through the Emancipation Proclamation. Topics include everything from Walt Whitman's wartime diary to the bloody guerrilla campaigns in Missouri and Kansas. Esteemed contributors include William Freehling, Adam Goodheart, and Edward Ayers, among others. The book also compiles new essays that have not been published on the Disunion site by well-known historians such as David Blight, Gary Gallagher, and Drew Gilpin Faust. Topics include the perspective of African-American slaves and freed men on the war, the secession crisis in the Upper South, the war in the West (that is, past the Appalachians), the war in Texas, the international context, and Civil War-era cartography. Portraits, contemporary etchings, and detailed maps round out the book.

Escape from Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War


Gene Hackman - 2008
    'Escape from Andersonville' is an explosive Civil War novel about one man's escape from a notorious confederate prison camp - and his dramatic return.

For the Confederate Dead


Kevin Young - 2007
    He opens with the beautiful “Elegy for Miss Brooks,” invoking Gwendolyn Brooks, who died in 2000, and who makes a perfect muse for the volume: “What the devil / are we without you?” he asks. “I tuck your voice, laced / tight, in these brown shoes.” In that spirit of intimate community, Young gives us a saucy ballad of Jim Crow, a poem about Lionel Hampton's last concert in Paris, an “African Elegy,” which addresses the tragic loss of a close friend in conjunction with the first anniversary of 9/11, and a series entitled “Americana,” in which we encounter a clutch of mythical southern towns, such as East Jesus (“The South knows ruin & likes it / thataway—the barns becoming / earth again, leaning in—”) and West Hell (“Sin, thy name is this / wait—this place— / a long ways from Here / to There”). For the Confederate Dead finds Young, more than ever before, in a poetic space that is at once public and personal. In the marvelous “Guernica,” Young’s account of a journey through Spain blends with the news of an American lynching, prompting him to ask, “Precious South, / must I save you, / or myself?” In this surprising book, the poet manages to do a bit of both, embracing the contradictions of our “Confederate” legacy and the troubled nation where that legacy still lingers.

General A.P. Hill: The Story of a Confederate Warrior


James I. Robertson Jr. - 1987
    Drawing extensively on newly unearthed documents, this work provides a gripping battle-by-battle assessment of Hill's role in Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and other battles. 8 pages of photographs.

Truth, By Omission


Daniel Beamish - 2019
    Alfred Olyontombo barely survived the violence of his desperate childhood in central Africa. Ripped from his village as a young orphan, Alfred persevered through turbulent years of lawlessness and civil war, eventually making his way to a refugee camp as Rwanda's genocide raged behind him. Alone amidst the chaotic conditions at the camp, Alfred's quick mind and gift for languages caught the attention of an idealistic young doctor who opened the door to a whole new life for Alfred. He seized that chance, moving forward with hard work, honor, and a conscious decision to leave the full truth of his past-and the boy he used to be-behind in Africa.Years pass and Alfred becomes a respected physician married to a beautiful lawyer, enjoying a privileged life in Colorado. But then his idyllic existence is shattered by the terminal illness of his young daughter. As he and his wife struggle to come to terms with their unfathomable loss, Alfred is publicly accused of a long-ago war crime in Africa. The mere accusation threatens to destroy everything he has built-including his marriage. But as he struggles to defend himself, Alfred realizes he is culpable and that omitting his sins did not absolve them.His future hanging in the balance, Alfred is forced to face all the misdeeds he'd hoped time and his carefully crafted version of the past had buried forever. But is it too late for the truth to matter?

Why We Struck: The Story Of The First Nigerian Coup


Adewale Ademoyega
    

Witness to Gettysburg


Richard Wheeler - 1919
    Describing the Civil War's most crucial battle, personal experiences of Gettysburg residents are combined with accounts of Union and Confederate soldiers who survived the battle to produce a chronological narrative that brings the battle of Gettysburg to life.