by Jennifer David

Were you looking for a book on the American Civil War? Discover the best books on this topic by consulting our updated ranking for March 2023! In this selection, we show you some examples of recommended books on the American Civil War for sale online in digital or printed format. 

5 Historical Novels to Delve into the American Civil War

Here is a list of 5 books on the American Civil War that you can start reading today!

1. The Free Men of Jones

From the American Civil War, we had always read unrelated books about specific battles like Antietam, Chancellorsville, or Bull Run. However, this is the most complete and entertaining book about this critical phase of military history. Keegan begins the book by approaching the physical and economic geography where the acts of arms that devastated the young North American republic took place for 5 years. In the long run, the transport network, the physical geography, and the type of industry on both sides determined the outcome of this bloody war. Another of the elements that Keegan analyzes is the military doctrine of the time, taught at West Point and shared with the commanders of both sides. The book also describes the life of the soldier in combat, the different personalities of the high commands of the two armies, the health front, and the participation among the northerners of black soldiers -segregated- or the naval war that took place in parallel with the most well-known land campaigns.

2. The Civil War

Learn about the Deadliest War in American History No other war in American history has sparked as much debate and conflict as the American Civil War. For more than 150 years in American life, the history of the Civil War has been a source of contention, confusion, and even contempt. Even today, the American public cannot agree on the causes of the Civil War, regardless of its lessons or legacy. More Americans died in the Civil War than in World War I, World War II, and Vietnam combined. The war pitted not only Americans against each other but also against families, neighbors, and friends. In some parts of the United States, the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy still runs deep. The fundamental questions of the civil war, racial equality, citizens’ rights, and the government’s role remain the subject of hot debates today. In many ways, the war that claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Americans a century and a half ago remains the largest battle ever fought on American soil.  

3. The LEDGER 

The war has become not a memory, not even a painful claim of the victims or their descendants, but a political tool. The LEDGER by Paul Tick is a fiction where four men meet daily at Patrick O’Leery’s Mercantile store for coffee to discuss the impact of that war. Here Patrick O’leery archives the events by writing notes in his sales journal. The Ledger is gray. It prompts the mayhem in America. The American Civil War originated from several causes. The tensions and disagreements between the northern and southern states had been going on for a long time. For over a century, diverse economic and political interests and conflicting and accumulated cultural values led to armed conflict. Consequently, the demand for slave labor from the South also grew. At the start of the civil war, some 4 million enslaved people worked on the plantation estates of the South. The town’s men would answer President Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Some folks of Perry’s Corners survived in hell or high water, but not without the disagreements that arose and led to severe discrepancies and the idea of invalidation. 

4. The Red Badge of Courage

Considered by Hemingway a classic of American literature, Stephen Crane’s novel (from 1895) tells the story of a Union Army recruit who dreams and idealizes war, and the jug of terrifying frozen water that is going to mean his death of him. Reality: harassed by his cowardice in combat, he will want to make amends. It is a novel but with the freedom that fiction gives the reader to say: Look, the Civil War at the front was this. It was many things: in the rear, it was horror, the pain, of course, repression. But the battle, the combat, the people who fought looking at each other’s faces, you will know them, and thus you will know who were in it. It is a manuscript that will delight lovers of warfare and that many, especially in the US, say are one of the best novels about the conflict.

5. Line Of Fire

Line Of Fire addresses ten days of the Battle of the Ebro, one of the conflict’s bloodiest episodes, through characters from both sides, each with a different condition, ideology, and circumstances. We know about the war first because direct witnesses told our parents, uncles, and grandparents. But there is a third personal factor: what a civil war is. One has the multifaceted impression that a civil war is much more complex than a story of good and bad guys, as they are trying to tell us now. Line of Fire, therefore, focuses on the human in which there is room for both convinced combatants and others who have fallen into one of the two camps by chance. A civil war has two fundamental aspects: The ideological part and the human part. Both are linked in origin, but as time passes, it happens as it has happened that the unrealistic amount is maintained, but the human part disappears. Evidently, there was a legitimate Republic and an illegitimate side, but it was much more complex than all that. Ideology is not enough to explain it. Human beings are needed. This novel tries not to recompose or clarify anything but to bring the human element back to the fore.

Conclusion

There are excellent books, perfect history books, and fascinating memoir books. As for novels, there are some excellent ones. What do you think of these novels? In addition, it would be necessary to read those of both sides because they provide exciting and complementary visions. Get these books now to learn more about the civil war!

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