In the space age, a young man, having followed the trail of tears, sets out to follow the smell of charred wood still smoldering from Sherman's firemarch. Mr. Good is a National Park Ranger who spent a year on assignment with the U. S. Civil War Center entering regimentals into a database. The reader refreshed by the unusual approaches provided by the books listed above, may be ready to return with a more complex vision to what historians have to show us. Stokesbury s short history will teach you everything you need to know to put in context an intriguing array of books on actions or campaigns in other states or expeditions in specific areas that will add variety to your growing Civil War bookshelf. As stressed in earlier columns, our bookshelves are overcrowded with biographies of the great generals.
Room needs to be made for the lesser, but in many ways no less fascinating, figures.
We need to know more about Buford, whom Michael Shaara made famous in his novel The Killer Angels. Porter is among the five or so great naval figures, but not enough people know enough about him because books about the naval campaigns, compared with the land battles, are far fewer. Just when we have had just about enough of the great generals, a trend is fully under way to publish for the first time or reprint the diaries or memoirs of the lower ranking officers and the enlisted men. That novel and DeForest's memoir of Reconstruction are slated for reprint as well. Not just because Cold Mountain rides high on the Bestseller List.