Our Favorite Books: Chris Mackowski’s Top 5 Books
I think everyone who knows me knows I’m a book guy—and not just in the sense that, like most Civil War folks, I love books and have a big library. I write books and edit books and help make books. I love stories, and I love the stories behind the stories. I love the writing itself as much as or as more as the history.
Here are my top-five favorite Civil War books, alphabetized by author’s last name:
- These Honored Dead: How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory by Tom Desjardin (Da Capo, 2003) [Read my July 2013 post here]
- Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day by William A. Frassinito (Scribner’s, 1978)
- The Rebel Yell & The Yankee Hurrah: A Civil War Journal of a Maine Volunteer, edited by Ruth L. Silliker (Down East Books, 1985) [Read my comments about Haley as part of a January 2022 post about solider memoirs here]
- Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (Pantheon, 1998) [Read my January 2011 post here]
- To the North Anna River by Gordon Rhea (LSU Press, 2000) [Read my May 2014 post here]
For my honorable mention, I’ll give a shout-out to Michael Gorra’s The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War (Liveright, 2020). [Read my initial reaction to the book from 2020 here and listen to my recent podcast interview with Gorra here.]
I would have included Shelby Foote’s trilogy The Civil War: A Narrative on my top-five list except that it’s such a massive, monumental piece that I hesitate to recommend it only because of its size. Foote’s writing style—as convoluted as his beloved Mississippi Delta—takes some getting used to, but for the brave at heart, unlocking the key will unlock a rich and layered reading experience. Criticisms of Foote’s history are many, but as a stylist, he’s wonderful. [You can read my appreciation of Foote’s work from November 2016 here.]
(If I did add Foote to the top-five, I’m not sure who I’d bump!)
You’ll note that these are all older rather than newer books. That’s not to say I haven’t read some awesome books lately. I have! When I read a book I especially like, I’m quick to call up the author and schedule a podcast interview. So, if you’re looking for some good contemporary reading, you can pluck some recommendations from ECW’s list of podcast episodes here.
Nothing about Stonewall Jackson?! You’re going to lose your fanboy status, Chris.
Bud’s biography is incredible in its detail, analysis, and comprehensiveness. But the book–and it subject–is not for everyone, so I hesitate to recommend it to. S. C. Gwyne’s biography was more accessible and a pleasure to read, but, again, you really need to want to spend a lot of time with Stonewall Jackson to tackle it. I also really liked Burke Davis’s old “They Called Him Stonewall,” which was my first intro to Jackson biographies. Davis was a great storyteller.
Fake fan…? Lol ?
As a former librarian my focus is on facts and comprehensive understanding. In addition, while conducting personal research the following references have proved to be of most value:
1. Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
2. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies
3. Abraham Lincoln: the War Years by Carl Sandburg
4. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis
5. My Diary, North and South by London Times reporter William Howard Russell
Honourable Mention: The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, and The Lincoln/Douglas Debates of 1858.
Confederates in the Attic is such a great book. RIP Tony Horwitz
Recently read it and absolutely loved it.
It’s wonderful that we have so many people who have so many different favorite Civil War books – the topic is endlessly wonderful and fulfilling. As one music journalist wrote, “They could release a five CD Greatest Hits collection of Bob Dylan’s 100 best songs…and you’d get hundreds of people complaining that their favorite didn’t make the list.
For my money, the top five Civil War books are:
‘Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command in Three Volumes’ by Douglas Southall Freeman. The Bible. There is no finer book on the Civil War.
‘The Civil War: A Narrative in Three Volumes’ by Shelby Foote. Beautifully written and powerfully accurate, Foote is reviled by dozens of historians for the unspeakable crime of not including footnotes, for not pillorying the South before the Maoist revisionism of the Civil War era began – how could he have known?, and because they’re viciously jealous that he sold millions of his books and was so popular when they were blessed with neither level of success. Or perhaps they merely hated him because he was Jewish.
‘Three Months in the Southern Confederacy’ (or ‘Three Months in the Southern States’) by Colonel Arthur J. L. Fremantle, Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards. A masterpiece of primary source “in-time” writing – the book was researched in the spring and summer of 1863 and published that same year. Beautifully written, it is notable for Fremantle’s illuminating conversations with everyday Southerners, including their views on slavery; and because he was present when Lee gave his orders to Longstreet on July 2 at Gettysburg and yet did not hear Longstreet disagree with a single thing his chief requested, despite Longstreet’s later claims in his autobiography.
‘Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles’ by Brian K. Burton. The Bible on this most fascinating of battles – it was second only to Gettysburg for casualties, yet is never noted for such by historians, nor is it noted for its tremendous importance. This was the battle in which Robert Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, saved Richmond, and drove McClellan off the Virginia Peninsula after coming within 50 yards of cutting his Army of the Potomac in two and destroying it. And, it was the battle that changed the war. Prior to it, the Federal Government considered it a war of rebellion and intended to bring the South back into the Union with slavery intact. After it, the war became a political struggle, with the North aiming to end slavery in the South, though all the while refusing to end slavery within its own borders.
‘Gettysburg: The Second Day’ by Harry Pfanz. A masterpiece of detailed combat writing that should be on the bookshelf of every historian. It’s clear he put his heart and soul into it; the inevitable followups, ‘Gettysburg: The First Day’ and “Gettysburg: Culp’s and Cemetery Hills,’ while worth having, don’t seem to have the flair and love for the topic that ‘The Second Day’ brims with; perhaps he felt forced to deliver the latter two and his heart wasn’t much in them.
Honorable mention: My ancestor’s Civil War diary, the most fascinating I’ve ever read. I will not mention his name here, but the entire diary will be published in my upcoming book ‘Till The Stars Appeared,’ which tells the story of his life and of the 30 young men from my family who served on both sides in the war.
I’m surprised you liked ‘Confederates in the Attic.’ I took it up eagerly yet was repulsed to find it full of misguided hatred toward Southerners, a dedicated lack of knowledge of Civil War, antebellum and postbellum society; and a disdainful at best view of current American society. It was typical of the last 25 years of Woke anti-America hatred championed by people who actually know next to nothing about America and American history. Happily, one week ago that era was put to death.
I loved Horwitz’s book. It was written in a different time (hard to believe), so I don’t know if parts of it hold up so well. I first discovered it in my early Civil War days and so looked at it more as a piece of journalism. I thought he went where the story led him, and I thought he did a great job of capturing some fascinating characters. I didn’t read his piece as anti-South but rather saw the South as a place that continued (continues) to wrestle with the war and its legacy in ways similar to but also very different from other parts of the country. I thought it was great travel writing.
Your note is a fine one and your points valid. To add to them, I think it can be said that the South may struggle with the issues of the Civil War openly, but the North does as well. I grew up in the North and constantly heard nothing but denigration of the South and its people. Fortunately, my parents, instead of flying the six of us in my family around the country, instead took us camping with our little trailer, all over the country, and when we spent several weeks each summer for over a decade visiting the South, I found that what people had told me was untrue. This was furthered by my time in the South as an adult in my career, and now my trips for research. Kind, open, warm, friendly, gracious people, proud of their homes, families and culture, unerringly accurate in their facts regarding antebellum life and the war, and especially aware of where the war sits in the stream of American history from colonial and revolutionary times up through the war and beyond. Conversely, I find most Northerners to be largely unaware of history, the facts of the war and its causes, and simultaneously ignorant of and dismissive of Southerners. “Yes, there is racism in America,” I’ve often been told. “And rednecks, inbreds, rubes and morons – and they all live in the South.” I am professional friends with a hugely prominent journalist in California who insists that the only racism one can encounter in America is in the South, and that all Southerners are, by geographic birth/location alone, are at least somewhat racist. (He’s California born and bred, and has rarely left the state in his entire life.) All of this is, of course, wildly inaccurate and untrue, not to mention the fact that something like 14 of the 15 major race riots that have occurred in America were north of the Mason-Dixon Line. As a child, as a businessman, and now as a Civil War historian, the vast majority of my closest, dearest friends, personal and professional, are Southerners.
I think it’s time for a major re-examination of American life 1789-1865, the causes of the war, what happened during the war, and what the war means – and should mean to our society. What a great project for multiple historians for the next 50 years!
This list is the one that most closely resembles my own. Desjardin’s “These Honored Dead” and David Blight’s “Race And Reunion” completely changed how I look at history in general.
Same!
My five favorites:
1) Charles R. Knight: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War Day by Day, 1861-1865.
2) Ezra A. Carman, edited and annotated by Thomas G. Clemens: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Vol. II: Antietam.
3) Francis Augustin O’Reillly: The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock.
4) Gary L. Ecelbarger: Frederick W. Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier.
5) Earl J. Hess, July 22: The Civil War Battle of Atlanta.
No Catton? Thou art a poor pretender, young Christopher, to ignore the master of the realm!
OK, to be serious. I do think omitting Catton is a weakness; for all his aged research flaws, the quality of the prose beats all. Now, what is meant by “top five”? Therein lies the key. For example, I think Robertson’s biography of Stonewall Jackson might be the best Civil War biography out there. Coddington’s book on Gettysburg, despite its age, might well be the best campaign study. However, I frankly think that Dave Powell’s trilogy on Chickamauga might be better than Coddington on Gettysburg. Nonetheless, I think the most important book Powell has written was “Failure in the Saddle,” because it punctured the Wheeler/Forrest mythology.
So we can go round and round …
These Honored Dead is on my long-term reading list, but, based on your recommendation, I think I’m going to have to move it up to number one! Sounds like an amazing read!