I used to spend long days in the library, searching for stories to make my history textbooks fun to read. And I filled up notebooks with good ones—funny, amazing, inspiring, surprising, and disgusting stories. But as you’ve probably noticed, textbooks are filled with charts, tables, lists, names, dates, review questions … there isn’t any room left for the good stuff. In fact, every time I tried to sneak in a cool story, my bosses used to drag me to this dark room in the basement of our building and take turns dropping filing cabinets on my head.
Okay, that’s a lie. But they could have fired me, right? And I’ve got a wife and baby to think about.
So here’s what I did: Over the years, I secretly stashed away all the stories I wasn’t allowed to use in textbooks. I kept telling myself, “One of these days I’m going to write my own history books! And I’ll pack them with all the true stories and real quotes that textbooks never tell you!”
Well, now those books finally exist. If you can find it in your heart to forgive my previous crimes, I hope you’ll give this book a chance. Thanks for hearing me out.
Source Notes
Here’s a typical day for me: I spend ten hours in the library reading tall stacks of books and taking tons of notes. Yes, I basically do homework for a living. But I like it, actually. I find stories and characters that interest me and I follow them around, jumping from one book to another, chasing down leads in a search for ever-better details and quotes. I sometimes think of myself as a kind of detective—a story detective.
The point is, I ended up reading hundreds of books while writing Two Miserable Presidents. Below is a list of the ones I found most useful. If you want to learn more about the people and events of the Civil War, this list would be a good place to start. I hope it’s helpful.
Books about the Civil War
I started my research by reading a bunch of books about the Civil War—books that cover the entire war. When you read books like this you don’t get too much detail about any one person or event, but you get a great overall picture of what happened and why.
Catton, Bruce. The Centennial History of the Civil War. 3 vols.: The Coming Fury, Terrible Swift Sword, Never Call Retreat. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961-65.
————. A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953.
Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vols. 1-3. New York: Random House, 1958-74.
Ketchum, Richard M., ed. American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War. New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1960.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
————. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992.
Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War. Cartography by William J. Clipson. Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Pub. Co. of America, 1993.
Books about the events leading to the Civil War
After working through the books covering the entire Civil War, I looked for books that would tell me about events that led up to it. These were some helpful sources. Anyone who thinks politics is hopelessly partisan and mean today should look back at just how nasty things got in the 1850s!
Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Johannsen, Robert W., ed. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Klein, Maury. Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Miller, Marion Mills, ed. Great Debates in American History. Vol. 4. New York: Current Literature Pub. Co., 1913.
Oates, Stephen. To Purge This Land with Blood. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Potter, David Morris. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Congress Investigates: A Documentary History. New York: Chelsea House, 1975.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. New York: Modern Library, 1938.
Books and articles about specific Civil War battles or subjects
After making an outline for the book, I started looking for great stories and quotes for each chapter. There’s no shortage of material—more than 50,000 books have been written about various Civil War subjects! No, I didn’t read all of them. I focused on the books below, because they give readers great real-life details about what it was like to live through these events.
Bailey, Ronald H. The Bloodiest Day: The Battle of Antietam. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1984.
————. Forward to Richmond: McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1983.
Bennett, Lerone. “Chronicles of Black Courage: African American Confederate Sailor Robert Smalls.” Ebony, Nov. 2001.
Block, Eugene. Above the Civil War: The Story of Thaddeus Lowe. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-North Books, 1966.
Channing, Steven A. Confederate Ordeal: The Southern Home Front. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1984.
Clark, Champ. Gettysburg: The Confederate High Tide. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1985.
Daniel, Larry J. Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Davis, William C. Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1986.
Furgurson, Ernest B. Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor, 1864. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
Goolrick, William K. Rebels Resurgent: Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1985.
Hoehling, A. A. Vicksburg; Forty-seven Days of Siege. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Horigan, Michael. Elmira: Death Camp of the North. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2002.
Kane, Harnett Thomas. Spies for the Blue and Gray. Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1954.
Korn, Jerry. The Fight for Chattanooga: Chickamauga to Missionary Ridge. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1985.
————. War on the Mississippi: Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1985.
Lawson, John D., ed. American State Trials. Vol. 13. St. Louis: Thomas Law Book Company, 1921.
McPherson, James M. Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Nevin, David. Sherman’s March: Atlanta to the Sea. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1986.
Trudeau, Noah Andre. Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
Winik, Jay. April 1865: The Month That Saved America. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Biographies of major Civil War figures
The Civil War has a cast of characters no writer could invent—ineluding the one who gets my personal vote for the best character in American history: Abraham Lincoln. Sometimes I’ll read entire biographies in search of just one or two interesting details to help bring the character to life. (Well, maybe I don’t always read the entire book.)
Clinton, Catherine. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. Boston: Little, Brown, 2004.
Davis, Burke. J.E.B. Stuart: The Last Cavalier. New York, Rinehart, 1957.
Davis, William C. Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske Co., 1892.
————. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Dublin, Webb and Chapman, 1846.
Fellman, Michael. Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman. New York: Random House, 1995.
Freeman, Douglas Southall. R. E. Lee: A Biography. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1934.
Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Johnston, Richard Malcolm, and William Browne. Alexander Stephens. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1878.
Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. Ne
w York: Ballantine, 2004.
Oates, Stephen B. Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
Perret, Geoffrey. Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier and President. New York: Random House, 1997.
Ross, Ishbel. First Lady of the South. New York: Harper, 1985.
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. 1-vol. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1954.
Sears, Stephen W. George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988.
Simpson, Brooks D. Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Wells, Damon. Stephen Douglas: The Last Years, 1857-1861. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.
Books about everyday life for soldiers and civilians
I think the everyday men and women in history are at least as interesting as the famous guys—and often much more interesting. These books give us an inside look at what life was really like for the people who fought in the Civil War. If I had to pick just two, I’d probably take the Bell Irvin Wiley books, which are gold mines of amazing details you’d never find in textbooks.
Blanton, DeAnne, and Cook, Lauren M. They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
Botkin, B.A. Civil War Treasury of Tales, Legends, and Folklore. New York: Random House: 1960.
Cornish, Dudley Taylor. The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987.
Gansler, Laura L. The Mysterious Private Thompson. The Double Life of Sarah Emma Edmonds, Civil War Soldier. New York: Free Press, 2005.
Ochs, Stephen. A Black Patriot and a White Priest: Andre Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maistre in Civil War New Orleans. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
Pullen, John J. The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957.
Trudeau, Noah Andre. Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998.
Uya, Okon Edet. Robert Smalls: From Slavery to Public Service, 1839-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Wiley, Bell Irvin, The Life of Billy Yank. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1958.
————. The Life of Johnny Reb. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1958.
Collections of primary sources from the Civil War
Of course, the best way to find out what life was like during a certain time in history is to read stories told by the people who were actually there. These books collect quotes from Civil War participants, organizing them by subject. The Blue and the Gray is an especially incredible resource—more than 1,100 pages of quotes, and none of them boring!
Commanger, Henry Steele. The Blue and the Gray: The Story of the Civil War as Told by Participants. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950.
Voices of the Civil War: Antietam. By the editors of Time-Life Books. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1996.
Voices of the Civil War: Chancellorsville. By the editors of Time-Life Books. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1996.
Voices of the Civil War: Gettysburg. By the editors of Time-Life Books. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1995.
Voices of the Civil War: Soldier Life. By the editors of Time-Life Books. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1996.
Wheeler, Richard. Voices of the Civil War. New York: Crowell, 1976.
Memoirs and writings by Civil War figures and participants
Lots of men and women kept journals and diaries during the Civil War, which is great news for writers and readers today. These books give us close-up looks at the war from all different points of view. Just how disgusting was everyday life in army camps? How tough was it to stay alive in a prisoner of war camp? Exactly how did women get away with disguising themselves as men and joining the army? What was Abraham Lincoln really like when he wasn’t giving famous speeches? You’ll find answers to these and many other burning questions in the books below.
Alleman, Tillie Pierce. At Gettysburg; or, What a Girl Saw and Heard of The Battle. New York: W. L. Borland, 1889.
Andrews, Eliza Frances. The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1908.
Billings, John Davis. Hardtack and Coffee; or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life. Boston: G.M. Smith & Co., 1887.
Boyd, Belle. Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1865.
Burge, Dolly Lunt. A Woman’s Wartime Journal: An Account of the Passage over Georgia’s Plantation of Sherman’s Army on the March to the Sea. New York: Century Co., 1918.
Carpenter, F. B. Six Months at the White House. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1866.
Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence. Through Blood and Fire: Selected Civil War Papers of Major General Joshua Chamberlain. Edited by Mark Nesbitt. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1996.
Chesnut, Mary Boykin. A Diary from Dixie. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1905.
Edmonds, S. Emma. Nurse and Spy in the Union Army: Comprising the Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps and Battlefields. Hartford, Conn.: W. S. Williams, 1865.
Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York: Modern Library, 1999.
Haskell, Frank. The Battle of Gettysburg. Boston: Mudge Press, 1908.
Jones, John Beauchamp. A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1866.
Lee, Robert, E. The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee. Edited by Clifford Dowdey. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961.
Lincoln, Abraham. The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by Phillip Van Doren Stern. New York: Modern Library, 1999.
————. Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Edited by Roy Prentice Basler. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2001.
————. The Lincoln Reader. Edited by Paul M. Angle. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1947.
————. Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858. New York: Library of America, 1989.
Longstreet, James. “Lee’s Right Wing at Gettysburg.” In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3. Edited by Robert Underwood Johnson. New York: Yoseloff, 1956.
Loughborough, Mary Ann Webster. My Cave Life in Vicksburg, with Letters of Trial and Travel. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1864.
McCarthy, Carlton. Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865. Richmond: C. McCarthy and Co., 1882.
McClellan, George B. McCelllan’s Own Story. New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1886.
Myers, Elizabeth. “How a Gettysburg Schoolteacher Spent Her Vacation in 1863.” Philadelphia North American, July 4, 1909.
Perry, John Gardner. Letters from a Surgeon of the Civil War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1906.
Ramsay, H. Ashton. “The Most Famous of Sea Duels.” Harper’s Weekly, February 10, 1912.
Ransom, John L. Andersonville Diary; Escape, and List of Dead. Philadelphia: Douglass Bros., 1883.
Seward, William H. The Works of William H. Seward. Edited by George E. Baker. New York: Redfield, 1853.
Sumner, Charles. Works of Charles Sumner. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1875.
Velazquez, Loreta Janeta. The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez. Richmond: Dustin, Gilman & Co., 1876.
Watkins, Samuel R. “Co. Aytch”: First Tennessee Regiment; or, A Side Show of the Big Show. Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882.
Young, Jesse. What a Boy Saw in the Army. New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1894.
Zettler, Berrian McPherson. War Stories and School-Day Incidents. New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1912.
Quotation Notes
Why are textbooks so boring? I could explain—but it would be boring. I’ll just mention one serious problem with textbooks: they always seem to avoid quotes that are at all funny, amazing, surprising, disgusting, confusing, stupid, mean, or anything else interesting. One of my main goals wi
th this book was to fill it with all the quotes I never got to use in textbooks. Just in case you think I made some of this stuff up, here’s a list of the sources where the quotes can be found. For more information about the sources, look in the Source Notes.
How to Rip a Country Apart
“One man will clean ten times as much cotton” Bordewich, Bound for Canaan.
“Why am I a slave?” Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
“Who saw this assault” Douglass, Narrative of the Life.
“Had the conductor looked closely” Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
“I found myself in the big city” Douglass, Life and Times.
“When I found I had crossed” Bordewich, Bound for Canaan.
“For the first time, we are about to” McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom.
“The South asks for justice” Miller, Great Debates.
“I cannot consent to introduce slavery” Seward, Works of William H. Seward.
“I have no pistols!” Chambers, U.S. Senate records, April 3, 1850.
“I wish to speak today” U.S. Senate records, March 7, 1850.
“The Union is saved!” McPherson, Battle Cry.
“If it were your Harry, mother” Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
“There can be no moral right” Lincoln, Speeches and Writings.
“When the white man governs himself” Lincoln, Speeches and Writings.
“There are eleven hundred men” McPherson, Battle Cry.
“STARTLING NEWS FROM KANSAS” Potter, Impending Crisis.
“murderous robbers from Missouri” Sumner, Works of Charles Sumner.
“I have read your speech twice over” Sumner, Works of Charles Sumner.
“Every Southern man is delighted” McPherson, Ordeal by Fire.
John Brown Lights the Fuse
“became considerably excited” Oates, To Purge This Land.
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