Our Favorite Books: Marc Ramsey’s Top 7 Titles

ECW welcomes Marc Ramsey

I have been reading books on the American Civil War since I was 10 years old, when my Aunt Connie gave me my first one for Christmas, Robert E. Lee and the Road of Honor, by Hodding Carter, in the Landmark series for young readers. I was immediately hooked, and over the years since then, while taking a break from time to time to read about another era (usually military history or the odd work of historical fiction) it is still Civil War history that I turn to for my study and my recreational reading.

Now we have a bookstore that specializes in Civil War books, as well as other periods of military history, and we generate a free, direct mail catalog, once a month, containing about 150 to 200 titles, the best books that we have picked up in recent weeks. On a particularly good month, you will see one or more of my personal favorites listed. So when asked to prepare a list of my five favorite Civil War reads, the only challenge was to keep the list down to five, for there are so many that I have loved over the years. At any rate, here goes, a succinct list of seven of Marc Ramsey’s very favorite Civil War Books, in no particular order.

1. Lee’s Lieutenants, a Study in Command. Douglas Southall Freeman. Charles Scribners Sons, 1942-1945. An unforgettable read and still the best source for Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. When you sit down in your favorite chair with these books, you forget you’re reading; you are literally transported back in time, thanks to the wonderful writing skills of its great author.

2. Fighting For the Confederacy , The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander, Gary Gallagher, Editor, University of North Carolina Press, 1989. I love this well-crafted volume for its objective look at each of the battles and campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia. Over the years I have advised many times that it is required reading for anyone wanting to learn more about Lee and his men.

3. One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry, His Experiences and What He Saw During the War 1861-1865, John Worsham, The Neale Publishing Co., 1912. One of the best written of all personal narratives and a great source for details and anecdotes of army life and equipment. We actually built F Company, our reenacting unit, around this book.

4. Berry Benson’s Civil War Book, Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter, Berry Benson, University of Georgia Press, 1962. This is an astonishing but factual memoir. Benson really was at all of the places and did all of the things that he describes. His saddest moment in the war was when he took his last shot at a Yankee and missed, just before Appomattox.

5. Rags and Hope, The Recollections of Val C. Giles, Four Years With Hood’s Brigade, Fourth Texas Infantry, 1861-1865, Val Giles, Coward-McCann, 1961. Another superbly written account, being about one of the most captivating subjects of the war, the exploits and experiences of Hood’s Texas Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia.

6. “Company AYTCH,” Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment: or, A Side Show of the Big Show, Sam Watkins, Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882. You don’t read this book, you listen to it. You listen to an old Southern veteran as he shares with you his stories and memories, most of which are probably mostly true. It’s a delight! So much so that I’m reading it for the third time at the moment.

7. To the Gates of Richmond, The Peninsula Campaign. Stephen Sears. Ticknor & Fields, 1992. My favorite campaign of the war is the 7 Days around Richmond, and this is the best book on that series of battles, by one of the best military historians I have ever encountered.

These books all have personality and are captivating reads. They are filled with individual experiences, anecdotes, irony, and even at times, humor.

On a final note – as I get older, I have found great pleasure in occasionally picking up one of these, my old friends, from my library and reading it again. I will find myself transported back in time, to a familiar place, where all cares for the present are, for a little while, suspended. Enjoy!

Marc Ramsey is the owner of Owens & Ramsey Booksellers in Richmond, Virginia

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