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Bibliography of the American Civil War | HearLore
— Ch. 1 · The Scale Of Civil War Literature —
Bibliography of the American Civil War.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
In 2001, historian Jonathan Sarna estimated that over 50,000 books had already appeared on the American Civil War. He noted that another 1,500 titles were appearing every year since then. Authors James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier stated in 2012 that no event in American history has been so thoroughly studied by historians or tens of thousands of other Americans who made the war their hobby. They suggested perhaps a hundred thousand books have been published about the conflict. No complete bibliography exists to catalog this massive output. The largest guide to books is more than 50 years old and lists over 6,000 of the most valuable titles as evaluated by three leading scholars. This volume represents only a fraction of the total written record available today.
Comprehensive Bibliographic Guides
Allan Nevins, Bell Irvin Wiley, and James I. Robertson produced Civil War Books: A Critical Bibliography in two volumes during 1970. Specialized topics like Abraham Lincoln, women, and medicine have their own lengthy bibliographies. Michael Burkhimer wrote 100 Essential Lincoln Books in 2003. Theresa McDevitt published Women and the American Civil War: An Annotated Bibliography in 2003. Frank R. Freemon released Microbes and Minie Balls covering medical literature in 1993. Steven Woodworth edited The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research in 1996 with an emphasis on military topics. Coleman Hutchison edited A History of American Civil War Literature in 2016 which emphasizes cultural studies, memory, diaries, southern literary writings, and famous novelists. These guides serve researchers who need to navigate the overwhelming number of publications.
Causes And Political Origins
John Ashworth published Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic through Cambridge University Press in 1995. Edward L. Ayers wrote What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History for W. W. Norton in 2005. Gabor S. Boritt edited Why the Civil War Came for Oxford University Press in 1996. Robert P. Broadwater presented Did Lincoln and the Republican Party Create the Civil War?: An Argument via McFarland & Company in 2008. Paul Calore covered The Causes of the Civil War: The Political, Cultural, Economic, and Territorial Disputes between North and South also through McFarland & Co. in 2008. David Herbert Donald contributed An Excess of Democracy: The Civil War and the Social Process within his collection Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era from Alfred A. Knopf in 1966. Marc Egnal released Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War with Hill and Wang in 2009. Susan-Mary Grant wrote North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era for the University Press of Kansas in 2000.
Naval Warfare And Ironclads
Bern Anderson published By Sea and By River: The Naval History of the Civil War through Da Capo Press in 1989. Michael J. Bennett wrote Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War for the University of North Carolina Press in 2004. W.T. Block produced Schooner Sail to Starboard: The U.S. Navy vs. Blockade Runners in the Western Gulf of Mexico via the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in College Station, Texas in 2007. Francis Bradlee covered Blockade Running During the Civil War with Essex Institute Press in Salem, Massachusetts in 1959. Robert M. Browning Jr. wrote From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron During the Civil War for the University of Alabama Press in Tuscaloosa in 1993. He also published Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in the Civil War through Brassey's Inc. in Washington, D.C. in 2002. Tom Chaffin released The H.L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy with Hill and Wang in New York in 2008.
Military Strategy And Command
Michael C.C. Adams wrote Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861, 1865 for Harvard University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1978. J. Boone Buff Bartholomes Jr. produced Facings and Gilt Buttons: Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861, 1865 via the University of South Carolina Press in Columbia in 1998. Andrew S. Bledsoe wrote Citizen-Officers: The Union and Confederate Volunteer Junior Officer Corps in the American Civil War for Louisiana State University Press in Baton Rouge in 2015. Alfred H. Burne published Lee, Grant and Sherman: A Study in Leadership in the 1864, 1865 Campaign with Gale and Polden in Aldershot in 1938. William C. Davis released Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee , The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged through Da Capo Press in Boston in 2014. George M. Fredricksbon contributed Why the Confederacy Did Not Fight a Guerrilla War after the Fall of Richmond: A Comparative View from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania in 1996.
Medicine And Human Suffering
George Worthington Adams published Doctors in Blue: The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War via Henry Schuman in New York in 1952. Andrew McIlwaine Bell wrote Mosquito Soldiers: Malaria, Yellow Fever, and the Course of the Civil War for Louisiana State University Press in Baton Rouge in 2010. Horace Herndon Cunningham produced Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service which was reprinted by Peter Smith in 1970. Jim Downs released Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction through Oxford University Press in 2012. Louis C. Duncan wrote The Medical Department of the United States Army in the Civil War for Olde Soldiers Books in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1987. Michael A. Flannery covered Civil War Pharmacy: A History of Drugs, Drug Supply and Provision, and Therapeutics for the Union and Confederacy with Pharmaceutical Press in London in 2004. Frank R. Freemon published Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care during the American Civil War via University of Illinois Press in 2001.
Ethnicity And Social History
Anne J. Bailey wrote Invisible Southerners: Ethnicity in the Civil War for the University of Georgia Press in Athens in 2006. Walter D. Kamphoefner edited Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home in 2006. Wilhelm Kaufmann published The Germans in the American Civil War, With a Biographical Directory through John Kallmann Publishers in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1999. Christian B. Keller wrote Chancellorsville and the German: Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory for Fordham University Press in New York in 2007. Lawrence Kohl produced The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns in 1994. Mark A. Lause released Race and Radicalism in the Union Army via University of Illinois Press in Urbana in 2009. Ella Lonn wrote Foreigners in the Confederacy in 1940. Cal McCarthy published Green, Blue & Grey: The Irish in the American Civil War in 2010. Dean B. Mahin wrote The Blessed Place of Freedom: Europeans in Civil War America with Brassey's Inc. in Dulles, Virginia in 2002.
How many books have been published about the American Civil War according to historian Jonathan Sarna?
Historian Jonathan Sarna estimated that over 50,000 books had already appeared on the American Civil War by 2001. He noted that another 1,500 titles were appearing every year since then.
Who wrote the largest guide to Civil War books and when was it produced?
Allan Nevins, Bell Irvin Wiley, and James I. Robertson produced Civil War Books: A Critical Bibliography in two volumes during 1970. This volume lists over 6,000 of the most valuable titles as evaluated by three leading scholars.
What specific topics do specialized bibliographies for the American Civil War cover?
Specialized topics like Abraham Lincoln, women, and medicine have their own lengthy bibliographies. Michael Burkhimer wrote 100 Essential Lincoln Books in 2003 while Theresa McDevitt published Women and the American Civil War: An Annotated Bibliography in 2003.
Which authors documented naval history and blockade running during the American Civil War?
Bern Anderson published By Sea and By River: The Naval History of the Civil War through Da Capo Press in 1989. Francis Bradlee covered Blockade Running During the Civil War with Essex Institute Press in Salem, Massachusetts in 1959.
How did medical literature address disease and treatment during the American Civil War?
Andrew McIlwaine Bell wrote Mosquito Soldiers: Malaria, Yellow Fever, and the Course of the Civil War for Louisiana State University Press in Baton Rouge in 2010. Frank R. Freemon published Gangrene and Glory: Medical Care during the American Civil War via University of Illinois Press in 2001.