My favorite is the sappy John Jakes’ historical fiction trilogy from the 1980s — North and South , Heaven and Hell, and Love and War … the history, which goes from 1842 to 1877 ain’t so great … but the “big” names are present as they breeze through narrative – John Brown, Phil Sheridan, George Pickett, Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis (of course), US Grant, RE Lee, Frederick Douglas, JEB Stuart, et al — interacting with Jakes’ characters … and there’s a mini series as well, with all the “beautiful people” from the 80’s.
Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove. Time-traveling Afrikaners provide AK-47s to the Confederates to change the course of history. While the plot seems silly, if you can get past the sci-fi aspect (reminds me of that bad joke, “Other than THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”), the novel is a well-done story, with excellent portrayals of the historical characters.
Honorable mention to Gray Victory, by Robert Skimin. Another alternate history novel, it focuses on John Mosby (a pre-war lawyer), who shortly after the war is called on to defend his friend JEB Stuart from a politically-motivated court-martial called to investigate Stuart’s role in losing the Battle of Gettysburg. Simultaneously Mosby, as the head of CSA military intelligence, must investigate an alleged plot to spark a revolt by enslaved persons, led by John Brown’s son Salmon, who is wracked with guilt for not joining his father for the raid on Harper’s Ferry.
The Falling Hills by Perry Lentz, which focuses on the war experiences of a white Union Officer and a Confederate officer who eventually meet at Fort Pillow.
The two volume novel written by Newt Gingrich with the premise that the Confederates win the Battle of Gettysburg and the resulting aftermath of this event explained in the second volume. The first book is called simply, “Gettysburg” and the second installment is called “Never Call Retreat”.
I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction, but three that I’ve enjoyed over the years are: The Barefoot Brigade by Douglas C. Jones, The Judas Field by Howard Bahr, and Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Falade.
I will give a shameless promotion of my award winning Civil War trilogy. The Asunder trilogy set in the war west of the Mississippi. Best wishes to all readers of historical fiction.
Snooks North and South and the second volume Snooks The President’s Man are the fictional Civil War escapades of an Englishman named Snooks and how he gets lured into the Civil War and all the people he meets. It is little known.
There were lots of Englishmen in the war, especially for the South. I wonder if he based his books on any of their adventures?
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I was really impressed with Robert Hicks’ The Widow of the South. It started me on a ~20 year love affair with the Battle of Franklin, and Franklin, Tennessee.
Many good ones mentioned above. I would include “To Play For a Kingdom” about a series of baseball games between a Union and Confederate unit during the Overland Campaign. “Miss Ravenel’s Conversion” by a Union officer, written just after the war, is quite good as well. Lots of melodrama and vivid characters.
The first couple chapters of ‘Rebel in Yankee Blue’ by Ray Hogan, because the premise is so great. Then it devolves into pulp mush. I don’t like novels that are fiction but are mistaken for fact, like ‘The Killer Angels.’
Freedom, by William Safire. A great telling of the event leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation, with many real life twists and turns. Fascinating and absorbing.
I still remember the first fiction I read about the Civil War – Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt. Newberry Award winning children’s book. I also really enjoyed Owen Parry’s Abel Jones series.
Oh man! I remember finding that book in the school library when I was in 3rd or 4th grade and reading it. I have a hazy memory of the plot but remember the cover illustration: a cannon beneath a flowering dogwood tree.
Unbound Gifts is a recently released book by Douglas Young that covers the Civil War era through the eyes of a young slave named Henry Freeman. Henry has a special gift that he uses to help with his days as a slave and then as a free man.
It IS a great book, with a fascinating history of composition…and for the violent attacks it’s received from the CRT folks. I’ve read it twice and seen the film 12 times – and still haven’t found a single racist thing about it. I have figured out why they want it to be racist, but that’s a topic for another time – it would make a good Question of the Week. Incidentally, few know this, but the reason the film is so good is that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote 90% of the final script. Famously, Selznick used several writers on the script and wasn’t happy with their work and kept firing them, until he hit upon Fitzgerald, who turned in the basic masterpiece we all know and love. But while Selznick – who I think by now had grown paranoid due to the stress of the production – liked Scott’s work, he didn’t like Scott, so he was thrown overboard without so much as a credit on the film – Selznick was probably afraid he’d get an Oscar or a co-Oscar and was determined to keep it from him – and Sidney Howard was handed the nearly finished script to complete, polish up, and handle anything new or changed that came up during filming…and so Howard got the sole credit and the Oscar for Best Screenplay from another source. You can imagine how the earlier writers, and especially Scott, must have bristled at this…
“Rifles for Watie” by Harold Keith. Winner of the Newberry Medal for children’s books. Unique in that the main character serves in both the Union and Confederate forces in the western theatre and Indian Nation. Read it in grammar school library in 1958.
No one has yet mentioned Ralph Peters, author of six highly realistic novels about particular Civil War battles. Over the past seven years, he is the only speaker at the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table to earn a standing ovation for a 70-minute presentation without notes or PowerPoint. “Cain at Gettysburg” is excellent.
Howard Bahr THE BLACK FLOWER
My favorite is the sappy John Jakes’ historical fiction trilogy from the 1980s — North and South , Heaven and Hell, and Love and War … the history, which goes from 1842 to 1877 ain’t so great … but the “big” names are present as they breeze through narrative – John Brown, Phil Sheridan, George Pickett, Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis (of course), US Grant, RE Lee, Frederick Douglas, JEB Stuart, et al — interacting with Jakes’ characters … and there’s a mini series as well, with all the “beautiful people” from the 80’s.
Gone With the Wind…
The Killer Angels.
Gone With the Wind
In addition to the ones previously mentioned, I really liked Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.
Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove. Time-traveling Afrikaners provide AK-47s to the Confederates to change the course of history. While the plot seems silly, if you can get past the sci-fi aspect (reminds me of that bad joke, “Other than THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”), the novel is a well-done story, with excellent portrayals of the historical characters.
Honorable mention to Gray Victory, by Robert Skimin. Another alternate history novel, it focuses on John Mosby (a pre-war lawyer), who shortly after the war is called on to defend his friend JEB Stuart from a politically-motivated court-martial called to investigate Stuart’s role in losing the Battle of Gettysburg. Simultaneously Mosby, as the head of CSA military intelligence, must investigate an alleged plot to spark a revolt by enslaved persons, led by John Brown’s son Salmon, who is wracked with guilt for not joining his father for the raid on Harper’s Ferry.
The Falling Hills by Perry Lentz, which focuses on the war experiences of a white Union Officer and a Confederate officer who eventually meet at Fort Pillow.
The two volume novel written by Newt Gingrich with the premise that the Confederates win the Battle of Gettysburg and the resulting aftermath of this event explained in the second volume. The first book is called simply, “Gettysburg” and the second installment is called “Never Call Retreat”.
It’s actually a trilogy. The middle volume is called “Grant Comes East.” I agree that it’s very good.
I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction, but three that I’ve enjoyed over the years are: The Barefoot Brigade by Douglas C. Jones, The Judas Field by Howard Bahr, and Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Falade.
I will give a shameless promotion of my award winning Civil War trilogy. The Asunder trilogy set in the war west of the Mississippi. Best wishes to all readers of historical fiction.
Gone With the Wind
What? No one mentioned “The Red Badge of Courage!”
Snooks North and South and the second volume Snooks The President’s Man are the fictional Civil War escapades of an Englishman named Snooks and how he gets lured into the Civil War and all the people he meets. It is little known.
But so good!
There were lots of Englishmen in the war, especially for the South. I wonder if he based his books on any of their adventures?
I was really impressed with Robert Hicks’ The Widow of the South. It started me on a ~20 year love affair with the Battle of Franklin, and Franklin, Tennessee.
“God’s and Generals”…
“Meade at Gettysburg” by Kent Masterson Brown. It’s about his three days before the battle of Gettysburg.
Still GWTW!
Many good ones mentioned above. I would include “To Play For a Kingdom” about a series of baseball games between a Union and Confederate unit during the Overland Campaign. “Miss Ravenel’s Conversion” by a Union officer, written just after the war, is quite good as well. Lots of melodrama and vivid characters.
The first couple chapters of ‘Rebel in Yankee Blue’ by Ray Hogan, because the premise is so great. Then it devolves into pulp mush. I don’t like novels that are fiction but are mistaken for fact, like ‘The Killer Angels.’
Freedom, by William Safire. A great telling of the event leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation, with many real life twists and turns. Fascinating and absorbing.
I still remember the first fiction I read about the Civil War – Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt. Newberry Award winning children’s book. I also really enjoyed Owen Parry’s Abel Jones series.
Oh man! I remember finding that book in the school library when I was in 3rd or 4th grade and reading it. I have a hazy memory of the plot but remember the cover illustration: a cannon beneath a flowering dogwood tree.
Unbound Gifts is a recently released book by Douglas Young that covers the Civil War era through the eyes of a young slave named Henry Freeman. Henry has a special gift that he uses to help with his days as a slave and then as a free man.
Unto This Hour, a 1984 novel about the Second Battle of Bull Run, by journalist, political reporter and NYT columnist Tom Wicker.
“Gone With the Wind” for it’s impact on American history.
It IS a great book, with a fascinating history of composition…and for the violent attacks it’s received from the CRT folks. I’ve read it twice and seen the film 12 times – and still haven’t found a single racist thing about it. I have figured out why they want it to be racist, but that’s a topic for another time – it would make a good Question of the Week. Incidentally, few know this, but the reason the film is so good is that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote 90% of the final script. Famously, Selznick used several writers on the script and wasn’t happy with their work and kept firing them, until he hit upon Fitzgerald, who turned in the basic masterpiece we all know and love. But while Selznick – who I think by now had grown paranoid due to the stress of the production – liked Scott’s work, he didn’t like Scott, so he was thrown overboard without so much as a credit on the film – Selznick was probably afraid he’d get an Oscar or a co-Oscar and was determined to keep it from him – and Sidney Howard was handed the nearly finished script to complete, polish up, and handle anything new or changed that came up during filming…and so Howard got the sole credit and the Oscar for Best Screenplay from another source. You can imagine how the earlier writers, and especially Scott, must have bristled at this…
“Rifles for Watie” by Harold Keith. Winner of the Newberry Medal for children’s books. Unique in that the main character serves in both the Union and Confederate forces in the western theatre and Indian Nation. Read it in grammar school library in 1958.
No one has yet mentioned Ralph Peters, author of six highly realistic novels about particular Civil War battles. Over the past seven years, he is the only speaker at the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table to earn a standing ovation for a 70-minute presentation without notes or PowerPoint. “Cain at Gettysburg” is excellent.
Any by Owen Perry, AKA Ralph Peters. Faded Coat of Blue is the first in a Civil War mystery series. Col. Peters is a gifted writer.