Today’s TTT is books set in _______, so I’m going to fill in the blank with….the American Civil War!

“I have even made attempts to see if I could finance a psychiatrist, not because I really do think I am nuts, but because I recognize that every nut thinks he is RIGHT. If I am NOT right, and am heading for this HORRIBLE battle, I DEARLY wish to be disabused of my delusion.”

(1) The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara. The story of Gettysburg, from the men and generals who fought it.

(2) Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith. I read this as a teenager and it was thought-provoking, exploring the reasons why different men fought in the war. It also introduced me to the Cherokee participation in the war: General Stand Watie was the last Confederate officer to surrender.

(3) Casualties, David Rothstein. A Union soldier who just survived the Battle of Gettysburg has been captured by the Confederates and sent to Castle Morgan in Cahawba, Alabama. His wife aims to go see him, war or no war.

(4) Selma: A Novel of the Civil War, Val McGee. A novel set in my hometown during an era when it was not only prosperous, but regionally dominant. The town was burned by Yankees during the last week of the war, but rebounded.

(5) All Other Nights, Dar Horn. An interesting mystery-thriller focusing on southern Jews and a Confederate spy ring. My review described it as the best Civil War novel I’ve read in a “long, long, time”.

(6) & (7) Gods and Generals and Last Full Measure I probably shouldn’t list these since I haven’t read them in more than twenty years, but they were Jeff Shaara’s attempt to make his dad’s Killer Angels into a trilogy. Gods and Generals covers the outbreak of the war and its first two years, ending with Stonewall Jackson’s death, and Last Full Measure covered the last year or so of the war.

(8) The Copperhead, Harold Frederics. A look at a Northern town that destroys itself in its attempt to silence a man who speaks out against the war on Constitutional principles. Later turned into a movie.

(9) The Starbuck Chronicles, Bernard Cornwell. A trilogy about a Bostonian who finds himself fighting for the South after he’s hired to be a bodyguard. A woman is involved, too. (There are always women involved in a Cornwell novel.)

(10) Gone with the Wind. A Civil War novel list without GOTW? Fiddle-de-dee!

(11) The Unvanquished, William Faulkner. A novel about a family living through the South’s collapse.