Let's talk Civil War

Happy  weekend everyone! 

So as my  title suggests this post will be about Civil War era books:)  I have always enjoyed this time period and am stoked to share some of my favorite authors with you :) 

Also because I am a History Freak  I decided to give you all a quickish lookn into how and why the war was fought.

The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world.

Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the country from its beginning. But these achievements came at the cost of 625,000 lives--nearly as many American soldiers as died in all the other wars in which this country has fought combined. The American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.

The event that triggered war came at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861. Claiming this United States fort as their own, the Confederate army on that day opened fire on the federal garrison and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender. Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this "insurrection." Four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy. By the end of 1861 nearly a million armed men confronted each other along a line stretching 1200 miles from Virginia to Missouri. Several battles had already taken place--near ManassasJunction in Virginia, in the mountains of western Virginia where Union victories paved the way for creation of the new state of West Virginia, at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and at Port Royal in South Carolina where the Union navy established a base for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy's access to the outside world.

But the real fighting began in 1862. Huge battles like Shiloh in Tennessee, Gaines' Mill, Second Manassas, and Fredericksburg in Virginia, and Antietam in Maryland foreshadowed even bigger campaigns and battles in subsequent years, from Gettysburgin Pennsylvania to Vicksburg on the Mississippi to Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia. By 1864 the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore the Union had given way to a new strategy of "total war" to destroy the Old South and its basic institution of slavery and to give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom," as President Lincoln put it in his address at Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle there.

Alexander Gardner's famous photo of Confederate dead before the Dunker Church on the Antietam Battlefield.

Library of Congress

For three long years, from 1862 to 1865, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia staved off invasions and attacks by the Union Army of the Potomac commanded by a series of ineffective generals until Ulysses S. Grant came to Virginia from the Western theater to become general in chief of all Union armies in 1864. After bloody battles at places with names like The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg, Grant finally brought Lee to bay at Appomattox in April 1865. In the meantime Union armies and river fleets in the theater of war comprising the slave states west of the Appalachian Mountain chain won a long series of victories over Confederate armies commanded by hapless or unlucky Confederate generals. In 1864-1865 General William Tecumseh Sherman led his army deep into the Confederate heartland of Georgia and South Carolina, destroying their economic infrastructure while General George Thomas virtually destroyed the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee at the battle of Nashville.

By the spring of 1865 all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended. The long, painful process of rebuilding a united nation free of slavery began.

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B O O K S 

Daughter of twin oaks 

By Lauraine Snelling

Seeking to fulfill the promise she made to her dying father, eighteen-year-old Jesselynn Highwood determines to take her little brother and the family's remaining Thoroughbreds from Twin Oaks plantation in Kentucky to her uncle's farm in Missouri, where they will be safe for the remainder of the Civil War. 

Dodging Confederate and Union troops, they ride at night and hide during the day. Finally, after encountering hunger, sickness, and the devastation of war, they arrive in Missouri only to discover the situation there puts them in even greater danger. 

But Jesselynn will stop at nothing to save her family, the horses, and whatever remains of Twin Oaks.

I still remember reading this book for the first time. It's one of those stories that capture you and refuse to release you till you've finished.  It's such a good book!!!  The plot is so different than your "normal" Civil War books.  

Y'all its awesome !!! And now if you'll excuse me I am going to go re-read it 😁😁

From the beloved author of the bestselling House of Winslow series comes a new trilogy about the Civil War. Join Gilbert Morris as he explores the life of General Stonewall Jackson through the story of the fictional Yancy Tremayne. Raised among the Cheyenne, Yancy rejects the Amish community his father rejoins and instead studies under Thomas Jackson, a professor at the local military school. When war breaks out, will Yancy further distance himself from the pacifist community and join the fighting? And can he find a home for his heart?

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So many historical novels are mostly romance novels with a bit of history woven through them. Not this one! Yes, there is romance in it, but it also helps the reader see into the heart of the man "Stonewall" Jackson. I had read Civil War histories, but this book challenged the reader to see the people of both sides somewhat trapped by their geographical upbringing and loyalties that had nothing to do with slavery. As in all wars, there were many brave and compassionate "innocents" involved.

Refiners Fire Triolagy 

By Lynn Austin

So yesss this is one of my favorite Civil War era series !! And I am so excited to share them with you all.

(Book one in The Refiners Triolagy )

Candle in the Window 

 In this Christy-award-winning novel, now beautifully repackaged, a timid southern belle must find her voice--and her courage--when she joins the Abolitionist cause.

From the time she was 12, Caroline Fletcher, daughter of a wealthy Richmond, VA, slave-holding family, knew she was different, for she knew that the household slaves were human beings, not mere property. When her mother commits suicide, Caroline is sent first to the Fletcher plantation and then to relatives in Philadelphia. Three years later, as the nation teeters on the brink of civil war, her father brings her home. Caroline is now a determined abolitionist, and she struggles to live in a culture where people believe that slavery is ordained by God. With her fianc‚, father, and cousin off fighting in the war, Caroline embarks on a dangerous path of spying and intrigue that tests her faith and demands risk and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Caroline is the only fully developed character in this work, and the African American characters are all too good to be true; despite these flaws, Austin (Hidden Places; Eve's Daughters; Wings of Refuge) has written a thoroughly engrossing and exciting tale that will appeal to fans of Virginia Gaffney's "Richmond Chronicles" and historical romances. Purchase where historical novels and Austin's other books are in demand. 

(Book Two in the Refiners Fire Triolagy)

 Fire by Night

Lovely Julia Hoffman has always enjoyed the carefree life of her well-to-do Philadelphia family. But when she fails to attract the attention of Nathaniel Greene, a fierce abolitionist, she shocks her family by becoming a Union nurse. Will that be enough to win Nathaniel's heart? 

Phoebe Bigelow, from western Virginia, has always been a misfit, and when her brothers join the Union army, she also enlists--under false pretenses. 

Soon, both have their eyes opened to the realities of war and suffering. Neither is quite ready for the demands of her new life, but their journeys of sacrifice and love are sure to change them in unexpected ways.

(Book 3 in the Refiners Fire Triolagy)

A Light to my Path

Kitty, a house slave, has always obeyed Missy Claire and followed orders. But when word arrives that the Yankees are coming, Kitty is faced with a decision. Will she continue serving Missy Claire and her household? Or will she listen to Grady and embrace this chance for freedom? Even wise Delia says Kitty has to decide for herself--that nobody except the Lord can tell her which way to go. 

Kitty has always lived in a world where authority is not questioned. She never has learned to make up her own mind any more than she has learned to read or write. 

But now Kitty has a daunting choice: How does she want her story to end? 

All Things New

Companion to the Refiners Fire Trilogy

This book will truly take you back in time - the Reconstruction Era - a time to bring an end to the vicious cycle of hatred and violence and give everyone a new start. It is the story of three beautifully portrayed women who are all caught up in this story of survival on a Virginia plantation after the civil war.

The endearing character of Josephine, the daughter of the Weatherly family, will capture your heart - a truly remarkable woman who along with the servants works hard to get back the beauty of White Oak, but gets caught up in a forbidden love. She realizes early on that the only hope for survival is through the Freedmen's Bureau. The plantations needed laborers and the Negroes needed work. The best solution seemed to be that the slaves would become servants.

Eugenia Weatherly, the very determined mother of the family, just wanted to go back to her life of luxury as it was before the war and to rebuild the plantation back to its glorious splendor. She refused to get her hands dirty and do what was necessary to survive. She was still stubbornly hanging on to the power of illusion, and not able to make peace with the Negroes, showing them little or no compassion.

Lizzie, the slave/servant at the plantation wants so much to get on with her life and family, but harbors deep scars of the past. She fears she loves too much making her more vulnerable for hurt and suffering. She wants her children to become educated and given a better life. She is ready, but afraid to embrace all the changes brought on by the war.

This was a compelling read - a story I'll not soon forget.

History of the Civil War

By James Ford Rhodes 

So just in case there are may other History addicts out here, this book is for you =)

It would continue to rage across the states for a further four years. 
In this Pulitzer Prize winning history of that period James Ford Rhodes fully explains its causes, events and effects. 
From the moment of secession by the southern states through to Lee’s surrender, Rhodes encompasses the full narrative of the conflict in this single-volume history. 
Rhodes provides vivid portraits of the main leaders of the war as well as their actions, both on the battlefield and in the political discussions taking place in Washington and Richmond

Behind Rebel Lines 

By Seymour Reit

"Behind Rebel Lines" tells the true story of Emma Edmonds. Running away from her father at the age of sixteen, she had left Canada for the country where freedom and liberty would become a reality. Now the year 1861, Emma is now 21 and the Civil War between states has begun. When President Lincoln asks for volunteers, Emma is determined not to just sit by. She disguises herself as a man and enlists herself into the Union Army. Now everyone, including her superior officers and fellow soldiers, believe her to be Private Franklin Thompson, assigned to Company F. But Emma wants to do more, so she volunteers to be a Union spy. But while she has been all this time fooling her own army, can she keep her secret behind rebel lines?

Ummm yes please!!! Guysss this book *heart eyes 

Purchase Behind Rebel Lines Here

______________________________________________ also,  I didn't have time to write a review of these books but y'all can just look them up.

Bonnets and Bugles series by Gilbert Morris

Cheney Duvall series by Gilbert Morris 

Abraham Lincoln / heroes of History series

Shades of Grey by Caroline Reeder

Freedom Train: the story of Harriet Tubman

 -Janelle
Let me know what you thought!!!