Civil War Fiction

Horror and the supernatural are the background of Bierce's short stories. His style is marked by vivid description, grim situations, and sardonic twists of fate. In terms of technique, he was far ahead of his time and his short stories are among the very best in American literature.

The common wisdom is that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was a failed actor and a madman. But the truth is that he was the matinee idol of his time, and the attack on Lincoln was not the act of a maniac, but part of a plan developed at the highest levels of the Confederacy. In Consider the Elephant, the story of John Wilkes Booth's life and death is told by his brother, Edwin Booth, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his age.

Ever since the guns fell silent in July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg has emerged as the defining conflict in our nation's history. American memory has established Gettysburg as the most important, most heroic, most savage battle this nation has ever fought. It has become our Waterloo, our battle of Marathon, our siege of Troy. In this riveting historical reappraisal, esteemed Civil War historian, Thomas A. Desjardin, sets out to examine the truth behind the myth by probing how this battle became legend in American hearts and minds.

SHILOH, 1862 - The Battle of Shiloh, fought in the wilderness of southern Tennessee in April 1862, marked a violent crossroads in the Civil War. What began as a surprise attack by Confederate troops on a Union stronghold to gain control of the Mississippi River Valley became a bloody two-day conflict that would eerily foretell the brutal reality of the next three years.

The Burning Land follows a turbulent romance through the upheavals of the Civil War and America's westward migration. Henry Overstreet, a carpenter, aims to scale the social ladder in Waldoboro, Maine, in his pursuit of Katie Nash. The lovers' path runs through America's bloodiest war—one fought to redeem the nation's soul by freeing a people. Often separated, they use quiet and devoted letters to capture each other's heart as Katie wins teaching jobs usually reserved for men and Henry fights furious battles with Maine's legendary Twentieth Regiment, rising to sergeant.

Even the coming of an autumn dusk could not subdue the color of this land. Shadows here were not gray or black; they were violet and purple. The crumbling adobe walls were laced by strings of crimson peppers, vivid in the torch and lantern light. It had been this way for days, red and yellow, violet—colors many had hardly been aware existed back in the cool green, silver, gray-brown of Kentucky. So this was Tubacca! Back in ‘59 this had been a flourishing town, well on its way to prominence in the Southwest.

The bitter conflict between the Union and Confederacy, spanning four terrible years from 1861 to 1865, brought the United States of America to the brink of annihilation. A war based on perceived tyranny and rebellion gave birth to many contradictions, where deceit ran rampant on both sides. Within this environment, it is known that at least four hundred women enlisted as soldiers under the pretense of being men, from both the North and South. Brave men who gave their lives for either side were not the war’s only heroes, and this story is dedicated to these remarkable women.

Matt Stone rode into Markleeville one hot dusk, with a wind at his back that promised summer thunder. He was tall and lean, with a narrow, clean-shaven face above the collar of his oilskin duster. His eyes were a hard pale blue, like chips of ice, and his black hair was long like an Apache's and held back with a strip of leather. The coat was open, revealing a buckskin vest and the pair of silver Colts at his hips. He rode a huge, sleek black horse with a bullet scar showing in white hairs across one flank. Its name was Lucky.

The transhumanists are attempting to use the chaos of the American Civil War to escape the Observer Effect: the immutable law that recorded history cannot be changed. If any should attempt it, time has a way of dealing with those transgressors in a very brutal, very final fashion. Now it is the last days of the Confederacy, and the Fall of Richmond looms. In the Shenandoah Valley, in the region later known as Mosby's Confederacy, insurgency brews, and the time travelers must join the raiders to prevent a transhumanist trap from dooming the mission from the start.

Ellwood Manor, Rose Glen, West Virginia, 1864: Young Lady Adaline's days fluctuate between tea parties in the rose garden at Ellwood Manor, and attending to wounded Union soldiers injured in the Civil War. When the town's hospital, plantation homes, and government buildings, overflow as makeshift hospitals, Adaline's mother, Lady Ellwood, offers Ellwood Manor as a convalescent home to recovering soldiers.

Norfolk, Virginia, 1864. Charlie Brewster arrives to recruit African American soldiers for the Union. He is recently returned from years of service, and though he's physically uninjured, his psychological battle scars run deep. Tensie Stevens' husband is at the front. She cannot read or write and wants to send him letters, so Charlie offers to put her words on paper. She has never known a white man show this much kindness. As a former slave she is scarred, too, although some of hers are physical. She helps him recruit other soldiers, and he writes letters for their wives as well.

Amid the aftermath of the Civil War, Georgie O'Rourke, the last surviving member of her family, decides her only choice is to leave her beloved state of Tennessee by answering a mail-order bride advertisement. With only a few items of rag, like clothing, she travels the Southwest Trail by covered wagon to meet up with her groom in Texas. Captain Parker Eastman, formally of the Confederate Army, travels from his cattle ranch to the Southwest Trail to intercept a woman his mother hired as a companion. He soon finds out that Georgie traveled to Texas to become his wife.

In this classic by Ambrose Pierce, a soldier falls asleep during war times. When he awakens, he finds an enemy man on a horse - but struggles with himself on shooting him. Instead he shoots the horse, and a comrade sees the horse and the man falling through the sky.

Henry Marts was 19 years old when he defied his Quaker faith and answered the call from President Lincoln to defend the Union. Fully expecting to be home in a matter of months, Henry left behind his parents, his work as an oysterman, his sea captain brother Will, and his sweetheart Christiana. Henry, and his comrades in the 3rd Regiment New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, would experience some of the most compelling moments of the Eastern campaigns.

Spagna, 1937. La guerra civile tra i repubblicani e gli insorti franchisti non conosce un istante di tregua. Convinto volontario del "Tercio" franchista, Martin Bora vive il conflitto spagnolo come un'avventura entusiasmante, dove il rigore delle scelte politiche si sposa all'impeto vitalistico dell'azione pura. I primi dubbi, tuttavia, cominciano ad apparire quando si imbatte nel cadavere di un uomo barbaramente assassinato. Si tratta di Federico Garcia Lorca, brillante poeta, progressista, omosessuale. Chi l'ha fatto fuori?

Former slave Pad Pennywell had hopes of starting a new life with his wife, daughter, and adopted family in Texas. Little did Pad know that his life was about to be torn apart when his family is brutalized by a band of thieves and murderers. On the Harrisonburg road, a stretch of trail that connects the Natchez Trace with the El Camino Real, Pad and his family are taken captive by John West, a psychopathic murderer whose charm and hypocrisy is only matched by his lust for blood and money. Pad's only hope for escape is a group of geriatrics, children, and a confederate veteran gunslinger.

For three-years, Jeb Benjamin and Zach Daughtry dreamed of traveling to California to gain their fortune, once released from Camp Douglas, an infamous Union POW hellhole. When the Confederate veterans reach Jeb’s sisters ranch in the Rio Grande valley, they find it in flames, his sister’s family dead and the ranch’s cattle stolen. Death and destruction haunt the veterans. A border war flares with General Juan Cortiña’s irregulars. Jeb learns Juan’s younger brother, Miguel, has raided their ranch, kidnapping his 14-year-old niece.

Samuel, a New York-based reporter, leaves the comfort of home to report on the war, where his focus changes from the men who fight to the women who heal. Sarah, a Southern healer, leaves the safety of her home to travel with nurses and use nature to heal. Meanwhile, Mack, a teenage girl, disguises herself as a boy to infiltrate Union camps. Mack befriends Sarah, and the two women begin a friendship - and deception - that will be carried throughout the war. When Samuel encounters Sarah on the battlefield, he realizes she is the childhood friend he has known for years.

With the Confederate Army firing on Fort Sumter, the Civil War has begun - and an invasion of Washington, DC, from Secessionist Virginia seems imminent. As the population evacuates, the president is in desperate need of men to defend the capital. Lincoln's trusted aide, Adam Speed Quinn, and Senator Jim Lane hastily assemble a motley crew and garrison them in the East Room at the White House. As dawn breaks with no Rebel strike, a single act of violence intrudes within the White House. One of the Frontier Guard lies dead in the oval library, throat slit ear to ear. There is a murderer among them.

The Treason of Mary Louvestre is based on the true story of a seamstress slave from the Confederate town of Norfolk, Virginia. When her owner gets involved with modifications to the ironclad CSS Virginia, Mary copies the plans and sets out to commit treason against the South. Facing certain death as a spy if caught, she treks 200 miles during the bitter winter of 1862 to reach the office of Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, where she hands over the plans.