CWI 2026 Recommended Reading List
Jay Bodnar, The Good War in American Memory (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012)
Fergus M. Bordewich, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction (Penguin Random House, 2023)
Lisa Budreau, Bodies of War: World War I and the Politics of Commemoration in America (NYU Press, 2009)
Kent Masterson Brown, Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command (UNC Press, 2021)
Kent Masterson Brown, Retreat From Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (UNC Press, 2011)
Bradley Clampitt, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory (University of Nebraska Press, 2015)
Gregory Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery: A History and Guide to the Union and Confederate Field Hospitals at Gettysburg (Savas Beatie, 2017)
Elizabeth Anderson Comer, Catoctin Furnace: Portrait of an Iron-Making Village, (The History Press, 2013).
Peter Cozzens, This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga (University of Illinois Press, 1992)
Michael DeGruccio, “Letting the War Slip Through Our Hands: Material Culture and the Weakness of Words in the Civil War Era” in Stephen Berry, ed., Weirding the War: Stories from the Civil War’s Ragged Edges (University of Georgia Press, 2011)
Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn (North Point Press, 1997)
Robert M. Dunkerly, The Lower Battlefield of Antietam: The Forgotten Front of America’s Bloodiest Day (The History Press, 2025)
Stephen Evangelista, Our Story: The Lives and Legacy of Those Who Served in Battery B First Rhode Island Light Artillery (2021)
Stephen Evangelista, Forever Silenced: The Story of the Gettysburg Gun (2024)
Stephen Evangelista, No Sacrifice Too Great: The Letters and Diary of Sergeant Albert Aaron Straight (2025)
William Frassanito, Gettysburg: A Journey in Time (Thomas Publications, 1996)
William Frassanito, Early Photography at Gettysburg (Thomas Publications, 1995)
William Frassanito, Gettysburg Then and Now: Touring the Battlefield With Old Photos, 1863-1889 (Thomas Publications, 1996)
William Frassanito, Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodies Day (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1987)
Joanne Freeman, The Field of Blood: Congressional Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War (Picador USA, 2019)
Dennis Frye, Antietam Shadows: Mystery, Myth & Machination (2018)
Gary Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (UNC Press, 2009)
Gary Gallagher, ed., Struggle for the Shenandoah: Essays on the 1864 Valley Campaign (Kent State University Press, 1991)
Nicole A. Moore, “Perceptions of Race and Identity and Their Impact on Slavery’s Interpretation,” in Kristin L. Gallas and James DeWolf Perry, eds., Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014)
Nicole A. Moore, “Getting to the Heart: The Intersections of Confederate Iconography, Race Relations, and Public History in America,” in Kevin M. Levin, ed., Interpreting the Civil War for Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017)
Nicole A. Moore, “Recollections on Interpreting Slave Life and Falling into Your Purpose,” in Denise Meringolo, Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism (Amherst College Press, 2021)
Alexander Gardner, Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War (repr; Dover Publications, 1959)
Lesley Gordon, Dread Danger: Combat and Courage in the American Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2025)
Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (Simon & Schuster, 2006)
Scott Hartwig, I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023)
Thom Hatch, The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer: The True Story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (St. Martin’s Press, 2015)
Thom Hatch, Glorious war: The Civil War Adventures of George Armstrong Custer (St. Martin’s Press, 2013)
Michael Hattem, The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024)
Michael Hattem, Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020)
James Hessler, The First Day at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863 (Casemate, 2025)
Harold Holzer, Edna Greene Medford, and Frank Williams, The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (LSU Press, 2006)
Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War (Vintage, 1998)
Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising; John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War (Henry Holt & Company, 2011)
Tony Horwitz, Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide (Penguin Random House, 2019)
Ian Isherwood, Remembering the Great War (Bloomsbury, 2017)
Jonathan S. Jones, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis (UNC Press, 2025)
Brian Kennell, Beyond The Gatehouse: Gettysburg's Evergreen Cemetery (Evergreen Cemetery Association, 2000)
Brian Kennell and Christopher Oakley, Evergreen: A Gettysburg Tale (2025)
Andrew Lawler, A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025)
Jennifer Murray, On A Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2023 (University of Tennessee Press, 2014)
H.G. Myers, The Lion of Little Round Top: The Life and Military Service of Brigadier General Strong Vincent in the American Civil War (Casemate, 2025)
Jonathan Noyalas, The Battle of Cedar Creek: Victory from the Jaws of Defeat (The History Press, 2009)
Stephen B. Oates, A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War (The Free Press, 1995)
Timothy Orr, The Battle of Gettysburg: The First Day (Osprey Publishing, 2022)
Kevin Pawlak, To Hazard All: A Guide to the Maryland Campaign, 1862 (Savas Beatie, 2018)
Kevin Pawlak, Such a Clash of Arms: The Maryland Campaign, September, 1862 (Casemate, 2023)
Kevin Pawlak, Antietam National Battlefield (Arcadia Publishing, 2019)
Jared Peatman, A Hell of a Regiment: To Gettysburg and Beyond With the Twentieth Maine (Stackpole Books, 2026)
Nathaniel Philbrick, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Penguin Books, 2011)
Kurt Piehler, Remembering War the American Way (Smithsonian, 2004)David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: A Mad Irregular Battle—From the Crossing of the Tennessee River through the second Day, August 22-September 19, 1863 (Savas Beatie, 2016)
David A. Powell, Decisions at Chickamauga: The Twenty-Four Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle (The University of Tennessee Press, 2018)
Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler, A Field Guide to Antietam: Experiencing the Battlefield through its History, Places, and People (UNC Press, 2016)
Jeff Shaara, The Last Full Measure (Ballantine Books, 1998)
Jeff Shaara, Gods and Generals (Ballantine Books, 1996)
Jeff Shaara, Rise to Rebellion (Ballantine Books, 2001)
Jeff Shaara, The Glorious Cause (Ballantine Books, 2002)
Jeff Shaara, A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh (Ballantine Books, 2012)
Jeff Shaara, The Smoke at Dawn: A Novel of the Civil War (Ballantine Books, 20140
Jeff Shaara, The Fateful Lightning: A Novel of the Civil War (Ballantine Books, 2015)
Jeff Shaara, A Chain of Thunder: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg (Ballantine Books, 2013)
Jeff Shaara, Jeff Shaara’s Civil War Battlefields: Discovering America’s Hallowed Ground (Ballantine Books, 2006)
Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War (repr; Ballantine Books, 1996)
T.J. Stiles, Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America (Vintage Press, 2016)
Steven Trout, On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919-1941
Phillip Thomas Tucker, Custer at Gettysburg: A New Look at George Armstrong Custer versus JEB Stuart in the Battle’s Climactic Cavalry Charge (Stackpole Books, 2019)
Peter Vermilyea, Litchfield County and the Civil War (The History Press, 2024)
Mary Jane Warde, When the Wolf Came: The Civil War in Indian Territory (University of Arkansas Press, 2013)
Sarah Jones Weicksel, A National Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era (UNC Press, 2026)
Seth A. Weitz and Jonathan C. Sheppard, eds., A Forgotten Front: Florida During the Civil War Era (University of Alabama Press, 2018)
Jeffry Wert, From Winchester to Cedar Creek: The Shenandoah Campaign of 1864 (South Mountain Press, 1987)
Jeffry Wert, Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer (Simon & Schuster, 1997)
Jonathan W. White, A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022)
Lucas Morel and Jonathan White, eds., Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln (Reedy Press, 2025).
Gary Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade American (Simon & Schuster, 2006)
Jay Winters, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Eric J. Wittenberg, Protecting the Flank: The Battles for Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field (Ironclad Publishing, 2005)
Fay Yarbrough, Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country (UNC Press, 2021)