This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War

Outstanding history of the American civil war. Harrowing but beautifully told, with so many blunders that unnecessarily prolonged the war and caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Best single volume history of the war that I have yet to read. For anyone who wants to have the chain of events laid out before them for the first time or just brush up on them after too long detached from the big picture this would be perfect. It didn't seem to become too overwhelming at any point either because it's only the union side of the war so the story telling cancels out half the characters and goings on of the war outright. Making for a much more cohesive presentation than most. Obviously they are made apparent but only in the way in which they effect the north. To go along with this the prsentation is obviously very nice to the north and it's characters but not in most ways unfair to the rebels either. Equal respect and show more admiration seems to be paid to all which allows for the story to unfold without the cult of personality kind of stuff the infects so much war literature.

If I had to suggest one book to read about the war this might be it. Before this it was "Reflections on the Civil War" by Bruce Catton. The Arme of the Potomac Trilogy is also a must read. I feel like anything by him is probably really good. show less

Vividly written but a little dated in its attitudes, especially its
hostility to the Radical Republicans

The title is extremely misleading in that it really isn't about the North necessarily. Like everything else I've read by Catton, it is mostly about the military conflict, very little about the off-battlefield is discussed. I get the feeling big chunks of this work were dropped wholesale into his Centennial series, though I'm too lazy to go lookin in depth.

A vivid, anecdotal narrative history of the Civil War. This was the first hard-cover book that I bought, at the Yale Co-Op in about 1964

A history of the Civil War campaigns from the Union Army perspective, I cannot say whether this is a good or bad book on the subject. I found once I had begun it that my interest in the subject was null. It was written for youth, the illustrations were either old drawings or photos of army soldiers. Perhaps my children would have been able to get through this if they were assigned it in school, but I was not, so I quit reading it.

Hardly a book for light reading, but to a student of the American Civil War no doubt a valuable reference book.