Question of the Week: What’s on your 2025 reading list?

What Civil War book did you NOT read in 2024 that is on your reading list for 2025?



20 Responses to Question of the Week: What’s on your 2025 reading list?

  1. “The Tale Untwisted” about McClellan and MD Campaign, and Orders 191. It had moved to the top of my ‘to read’ pile, but new arrivals buried it, unintentionally. Long winter nights at home have allowed me to whittle away the pile, and this is up next!

  2. I am currently reading “Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause” by Heath Hardage Lee which I would recommend. Afterwards, I am resolved to read Bruce Catton’s trilogy!

  3. “I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign”
    by D. Scott Hartwig

    1. I recently finished reading Scott’s book. It’s very good. Antietam is much more understandable to me now.

    2. Guelzo’s – Lee
      Carmichael’s – Life of the Common Soldier
      Jones’ – Vol. 2 of A Rebel War Clerk’s Dairy
      Watkins’ – Co. Aytch
      Fremantle’s – his war diary, writings
      Rossino’s – Calamity at Frederick
      Chatelains’ – Empire and Treasure book
      Powell’s – Atlanta Campaign Vol 1
      Foote’s – Yankee Plague

      … and many others.

  4. Like Ann McGehee, the stack is huge. The heavy hitters are finishing Tim Smith’s Vicksburg set, starting Powell’s Atlanta series, Hartwig’s Maryland Campaign, Master’s Stones River.

  5. Among the many 2024 stragglers are the Battle of Johnsonville, November 4-5, 1864, Jerry Wooten (just started reading); Minty and his Cavalry, Rand Bitter; Early Struggles for Vicksburg, Timothy Smith; and The Atlanta Campaign, Volume 1, David Powell.

  6. My list is also pretty long, but here are the top ones.

    1. Hell By The Acre, Daniel A. Masters
    2. Tullahoma, David Powell and Eric Whittenberg
    3. The Chickamauga Campaign, David Powell (3 Volumes)
    4. Campaign of Giants, Volume 2, A. Wilson Greene (Release scheduled in early April)

  7. Hi all, looking for some suggestions on how to flesh out my reading list for the war up till the end of 1863. The following books are what I currently own in my library. I’m open to multi volume works as well as single. Thank you!

    The First Battle of Manassas: An End to Innocence, July 18-21 1861–by John Hennessy

    Shiloh: Conquer or Perish—by Timothy Smith

    The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West—by Megan Kate Nelson

    Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign—by Peter Cozzens

    To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign—by Stephen Sears

    Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas—by John Hennessy

    Hartwig’s two volumes on the Antietam campaign

    The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth—by Peter Cozzens

    A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation—by John Matteson

    Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign, November 1862-January 1863—by Donald Masters

    If We Are Striking for Pennsylvania: The Army of Northern Virginia and The Army of the Potomac March to Gettysburg, Vol 2 —by Mingus Sr and Wittenberg (I can’t find Vol 1 anywhere! Haven’t looked too hard tbh, but I would like it)

    Gettysburg: The Last Invasion—by Allen Guelzo
    or
    Gettysburg—by Stephen Sears

    Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command—by Kent Masterson Brown

    Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign That Broke the Confederacy—by Donald L. Miller

    This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga—by Peter Cozzens

    The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga—by Peter Cozzens

    Some things I know I’m missing: a good book on Chancellorsville

    1. If We Are Striking For Gettysburg Volume 1 might be available from the publisher.

      Look at SavasBeatie.com. Great book, worth hunting for a copy.

  8. Still going thru a stack from the Symposium. Currently amidship on Dranesville by Quint.
    Here’s my to do list, we’ll see how it goes:

    Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville, Bradley
    Moore’s Historical Guide to Bentonville, Moore
    General Sterling Price and the Civil War in The West, Castel
    Co. Aytch, Watkins
    Burnside’s Bridge, Tucker
    Sounding the Shallows, Harsh
    Roads From Gettysburg, Schildt
    A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, Jones
    I Rode With Jeb Stuart, McClellan
    General Lee, by Fitzhugh Lee
    Advance & Retreat, Hood

  9. I’ve got Hunt’s Bristoe Station and Rappahannock Station books on my pile, as well as Ken Noe’s The Howling Storm and Inglorious Passages by Brian Steel Wills. Just put CW Goodyear’s President Garfield on top, as he’s speaking here in Fredericksburg next month.

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