There are hundreds, if not thousands of books written about the Civil War. Below are only a few that I have read or have heard good things about. Books highlighted in red are contemporaneous works.
Fiction
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane The Bloody Ground by Bernard Cornwell Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara The Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara The Horse Soldiers by Harold Sinclair Shadow on the Valley by Kirk Mitchell Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beacher Stowe The March by E.L. Doctorow North and South by John Jakes Battle Flag by Bernard Cornwell Shiloh by Shelby Foote White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke Gettysburgh by Newt Gingrich March Geraldine Brooks James Resoner Civil War Battle Series Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen |
Nonfiction
Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote Ordeal by Fire by James McPherson Mr. Lincoln's Army by Bruce Catton (part of a trilogy) This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust Reconstruction by Eric Phoner Black Reconstruction in the South by W.E.B. Dubois Lee's Lieutenants by Douglas Southall Freeman Hearts in Conflict by Curt Enders Company Aytch by Sam Watkins The Personal Memoirs of Ullyses S. Grant The Life of Johnny Reb and The Life of Billy Yank by Bell I. Wiley The Women's Fight by Thavolia Glymph France and the American Civil War by Steve Sainlaude Hard Tack and Coffee by John D. Billings Life and Times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman Campaigning With Grant by Horace Porter Wearing of the Gray by John Esten Cooke The Lost Cause by Edward A. Pollard Army Life in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson Six Months at the White House by Francis Bricknell Carpenter From Manassas to Appomattox by James Longstreet |
Contrafactual Historical Novels
or Just plain weird Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove Plot summary: South Africans from the future briought AK 47s to General Lee, and he used them to win the Civil War - weird but fun Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame Smith |