Abraham Lincoln: The Enigmatic President

  Mr. Lincoln’s High-Tech War: How the North Used theTelegraph, Railroads, Surveillance Balloons, Ironclads, High-Powered Weapons,and More to Win the Civil War Thomas B. Allen & Rodger MacBride Long title and a bit of a misnomer because this book also deals with the  use of technology by the  Confederate States of America. Granted, the Confederacy was limited by its scarce industrial capability, but it focused what it had on its navy, including the first ironclad in combat and the first submarine. Both were effective when let out of the barn, but neither lasted much beyond their first engagement. That’s the way it goes with military innovation; failures often precede a workable design. Most people view the American Civil War as a series of bloody battles fought with muskets and cannons. It all looks so backward from a modern perspective. In truth, the American Civil War changed warfare dramatically through technological advances. Before the Civil War, Napoleon de...

  Dixie Betrayed, How the South Really Lost the Civil War  by Davis J. Eicher To understand the Civil War period, it is necessary to study the war from both sides. Dixie Betrayed by Davis J. Eicher provides the view from the Confederate side. Dixie Betrayed is a different book than the title implies. The last words of Eicher’s book are “Jefferson Davis had lost his power as Confederate president — but not before the whole cause of the Confederacy was lost. Dixie was Betrayed.”  The title and these final words actually betray the worth of this book.  Nearly twenty thousand books have been written about Lincoln and almost a hundred thousand about the Civil War. Less than an estimated twenty percent of these were written from a Confederate perspective, and many of those were Lost Cause screeds. Since the Confederacy lost, official documents were often destroyed, requiring historians to rely on sources like newspapers, letters, and memoirs—and these are not nearly as w...

  The Trent Affair: The Diplomatic Incident that Nearly Brought Great Britain into the American Civil War Historians have given the Trent Affair short shrift. This book promises new revelations about the diplomatic incident, primarily through quotations from primary sources such as letters, newspaper articles, and official documents. While it is always useful to read primary source material, the sources presented do not offer a different perspective than historians have presented. Granted, historians gloss over the nuts and bolts of the Affair, but it’s because the issue was resolved before it could impact the course of the conflict. Still, understanding these details is important for context. What if the Trent Affair hadn’t been agreeably settled? If Great Britain had entered the war on the Confederacy’s side, it was likely that the South would have won. That would have made the Trent Affair a huge deal. Jefferson Davis’s top diplomatic priority was to drag a European power into c...

Except for the Monitor vs. Virginia ( Merrimack ), naval battles get short shrift in Civil War history. James M. McPherson  fills that gap with War on the Waters, The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865.  Land battles were certainly decisive, but the Union might have lost the war without Gideon Welles and the Navy Department. McPherson even makes a strong argument that Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut deserves to be ranked with generals Grant and Sherman when giving credit for the Union victory. Inventions and innovations by both the Confederate States and the United States revolutionized naval warfare. Steam power, screw propellers, ironclads, submarines, weaponry, and naval tactics all advanced significantly during those four years. By Appomattox, the United States owned the largest navy in the world, and arguably the most technologically advanced. War on the Waters does an admirable job of describing blue-water and brown-water (river) battles and explaining the signi...