Civil War Fiction

Three years have passed since General Robert E. Lee routed the Union army at Gettysburg and caused the Lincoln government to flee Washington, D.C. Now, as president of the Confederacy, Lee realizes the hollowness of his victory as he watches the South he loved and defended slowly crumble before his eyes. Lee must reach out to the only man he believes can help him save the South - the disgraced and out-of-office President Abraham Lincoln. Amidst intense opposition, the two men secretly devise a plan that, if successful, could reunite the country once again.

When General William T. Sherman commissions Ezra Justice to form a secret band of cavaliers who will help end the war between the North and South, his order may impact the West as well.

Chris Brabson hates the Union troops. Yankee riders in the Tennessee mountains have stolen his family's newly harvested crops and their only horse. In spite of this, Chris' brother joins the Union army, and his parents refuse to take either side. But Chris has no doubts, he would fight for the Confederacy. The Perilous Road, a Newbery Honor book, powerfully illustrates the senseless waste of war and the true meaning of courage and tolerance.

The summer of 1898 is filled with ups and downs for 11-year-old Moses. He's growing apart from his best friend; his superstitious Boo-Nanny butts heads constantly with his pragmatic, educated father; and his mother is reeling from the discovery of a family secret. Yet there are good times, too. He's teaching his grandmother how to read. For the first time she's sharing stories about her life as a slave. And his father and his friends are finally getting the respect and positions of power they've earned. But not everyone is happy with the political changes at play....

A sentry falls asleep at his post, leading to dire consequences. This is a classic tale about the terrible cost of the Civil War, which divided entire families.

Based on the extraordinary true story of America's first-ever female detective, this fast-paced adventure recounts feats of daring and danger...including saving the life of Abraham Lincoln! Eleven-year-old Nell Warne arrives on her aunt's doorstep lugging a heavy sack of sorrows. If her Aunt Kate rejects her, it's the miserable Home for the Friendless. Luckily, canny Nell makes herself indispensable to Aunt Kate...and not just by helping out with household chores. For Kate Warne is the first-ever female detective employed by the legendary Pinkerton Detective Agency.

South Carolina, 1862. Emily Jarvie is determined to send her family's slave-owning history to its grave. When the Union Army captures the Sea Islands, she returns to the south to teach the former slaves, part of the Army's unusual experiment in racial equality. Despite her loyalty to the Union cause, her Southern heritage raises a brick wall of Yankee suspicion.

Mary Anna Custis Lee is a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and heiress to Virginia's storied Arlington house and General Washington's personal belongings. Born in bondage at Arlington, Selina Norris Gray learns to read and write in the schoolroom Mary and her mother keep for the slave children and eventually becomes Mary's housekeeper and confidante. As Mary's health declines, Selina becomes her personal maid, strengthening a bond that lasts until death parts them.

Fiction merges with history in this novel taking place during the turbulent times of the civil war and the horrors it entailed. Holme's silly, coquettish yet kind-hearted Rose will pull you in from the start. The sweet and pious Annie, the noble Tom Carleton, the motherly widow Mrs. Simms, the young and courageous Isaac, the mischievous rebel working for the south, and the brash, uneducated Bill Baker are just a few of the unforgettable characters who grow with every chapter.

Colorful, dramatic, blundering, and tragic - these are some of the adjectives that have been applied to the two-day engagement at Shiloh. This battle, which bears the biblical name meaning “place of peace,” was one of the bloodiest encounters of the Civil War. The Union colonel, whose words give the present book its title, foretold the losses when he told his men: “Fill your canteens Boys! Some of you will be in hell before night….” Fought in the early spring of 1862 on the west bank of the Mississippi state line, Shiloh was, up to that time, the biggest battle of American history.

From Vienna's barricades to bleeding Kansas to the Civil War, August Bondi was continuously engaged in the struggle for freedom for half of his young adult life. As an old man, he wrote down what he remembered, and author Aaron Barnhart closely followed Bondi's autobiography in writing Firebrand. Barnhart also drew upon the 1958 novel Border Hawk: August Bondi, by children's author Lloyd Alexander (winner of the Newbery Medal and National Book Award), to bring Bondi's story back to life.

Hearing the hoofbeats of 20 horses entering the yard at the front of her house, Mattea pulled the lead rope, releasing the cow she was milking and ran into the house to find five Sioux braves wearing war paint sitting at her table, smoking her husband's tobacco from the humidor on the mantle.

Long relegated to a secondary position behind Gettysburg, Vicksburg has more recently earned consideration by historians as the truly decisive battle of the Civil War. Indeed, Vicksburg is fascinating on many levels. A focal point of both western armies, the Federal campaign of maneuver that finally isolated the Confederates in the city was masterful. The Navy’s contribution to the Federal victory was significant. The science of the fortifications and siege tactics are rich in detail.

Lexington, Kentucky, 1859. After saving John Hunt Morgan from a puma attack, 15-year-old farm boy Will Crump joins Hunt’s militia, the Lexington Rifles. Morgan mentors Will and enrolls him in the local university, where he hopes to study law. As tensions rise between the North and South, Will is torn between his loyalty to Morgan and his love for his family. Will’s sister Albinia, friend of the Clay family, becomes increasingly aware of the plight of the slaves. Luther is one of the first slaves Albinia helps flee the South after his master cruelly abuses his mother and sister.

"I was born a slave, as was my father before me, but I shall die a free man." Thus begins the poignant story of Samuel Washburn, born a slave in 1850. A young master's cruelty leads to an unforeseen confrontation, which results in Sam and his cousin fleeing the plantation for their lives. They run north to freedom, only to return the South to fight for the greater cause in the Civil War.

This classic collection of essays, edited by Booker T. Washington and with contributions from many of post-Civil War America's other prominent African-American thinkers, sought to redefine the role of Black persons in the new Jim Crow era and beat back white supremacy through racial uplift. Seven essays include Charles Chesnutt's "The Disfranchisement of the Negro", W. E. B. DuBois "The Talented Tenth", and Wilford Horace Smith's "The Negro and the Law" .

When Elizabeth Kaufman received the news of her husband's death at the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863, she felt only relief. She determined that she would never be at the mercy of any man again, even if it meant she would never have a family of her own. Then Aaron Zook comes home with her brother when the war ends two years later.

Ruby Weaver's curly red hair isn't the only thing that sets her apart from her Amish community in 1863. Twenty-eight and single, Ruby doesn't believe a woman needs to be married in order to be happy. Her ailing friend Lovinia Fischer, however, has other ideas and wants Ruby to promise to marry her husband after she dies. Never imagining she'd have to fulfill that vow, Ruby agrees. And she's not the only one. Lovinia has extracted a similar promise from her husband, Gideon.

Septima Collis, a native of South Carolina, married Union general Charles H.T. Collis prior to the Civil War. She supported and accompanied her husband during the Civil War. This rendition is beautifully narrated by Suzi Woods.

July 1861. On Independence Day, the citizens of Washington, DC, are celebrating as if there isn't a war. But the city is teeming with green Union recruits while President Lincoln and his War Department are focused on military strategy to take Richmond in Secessionist Virginia in order to bring the conflict to a swift end. Manassas, Virginia, near Bull Run Creek, is in their sights. The very next morning, as Congress convenes once more, a dead body is found hanging from the crane beneath the unfinished dome of the Capitol.