Collecting Civil War Books

“My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington…”
--Abraham Lincoln, Farewell Address, Springfield, Illinois, February 11, 1861



If one name is synonymous with the Civil War, it is Abraham Lincoln. So much about him has passed into legend that, as with all of history’s icons, one must often turn to original sources to find truth. And few Americans have left as many hallowed texts and speeches as Lincoln, whose many works reflect the eloquence, intellect, and willpower that bound together a fragmented Union.



The earliest important published works relating to Lincoln are his debates with Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, probably the most powerful figure of his day in national politics. In accepting the nomination as the Republican candidate for the Illinois senatorship, Lincoln issued one of his most powerful speeches, in which he declared: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free... I do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect it will cease to be divided” (Speech... Before the Republican State Convention, 1858). The main subject of these debates, first published in Columbus, Ohio, in 1860 as the Political Debates, was the expansion of slavery. Though Lincoln narrowly lost the senate race, his powerful and clear force of reasoning and his great moral earnestness established for him a national reputation as a capable leader.



Other important works by Lincoln include his first and second inaugural addresses, the text of the revered Gettysburg Address (first published in pamphlet form as The Gettysburg Solemnities in Washington, D.C., 1863, and obtainable in book form as part of Edward Everett’s An Oration Delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg... New York, 1863), and the Emancipation Proclamation, issued as a general military order. The best compilation of Lincoln’s writings is the twelve-volume Complete Works (1906-7) by Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln’s private secretaries. Nicolay and Hay also wrote Abraham Lincoln: A History (ten volumes, 1890). Later important biographies were written by Carl Sandburg and Albert Beveridge, and Walt Whitman’s poetic tribute to Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” was first published the second issue of Drum-Taps (1867), Whitman’s reflections on the late war.



While political, social, and economic differences were the sweeping issues of the conflict, many writers found the Civil War to be the perfect stage for dramas of a much more personal nature. It had all the elements of great theater - conflict, climax, and denouement, heroes and anti-heroes, the collision of two seemingly incompatible ways of life and the ideals behind them.



Though published in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin can scarcely be overlooked as an important contribution to the literature of the Civil War. It is said to have had a social impact on the United States greater than that of any book before or since. At the time of its publication general sentiment among the Northern populace was that slavery was something outside of daily experience, and that as long as those in free states didn’t have to deal with slavery, it was acceptable. Stowe’s powerful novel, in which slavery destroys both slave and master, galvanized the abolitionist movement and swung the pendulum of public opinion in a way that no one on either side of the debate could have foreseen. Afterwards it became only a matter of when, not if, the issue would be settled once and for all.



Stephen Crane was among the first to capture the true nature of the war in his classic The Red Badge of Courage, considered by many the first modern war novel. Crane, who had no war experience, intended the novel to be “a study of fear,” and he drew on his own imaginative power to capture with remarkable accuracy the confused and fearful inner life of the common soldier. He combined this with an extraordinarily keen eye and ear for the overwhelming chaos of the battlefield, which he absorbed from careful study of the popular and still-important anthology The Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Crane set a new standard for the depiction of psychological conflict in fiction, and The Red Badge of Courage in many ways foreshadowed the numbing spiritual dissolution of the war-torn twentieth century.



A number of modern writers found the Civil War rife with imaginative possibilities. Foremost among these was William Faulkner, who used the war both as the immediate backdrop and the tragic source for his stories and novels. Absalom, Absalom!, one of the great twentieth-century literary achievements in any language, is in part a Civil War narrative seen through the filter of a mystery story. Faulkner’s poetic, experimental style and the novel’s gripping conclusion ensure that Absalom will forever vie with the inimitable The Sound and the Fury as his pre-eminent work. Many of his other books, including the Snopes trilogy (The Hamlet, The Mansion, and The Town), The Unvanquished and Sartoris, draw on the Civil War as the source of their narratives.



Indisputably the most popular of all novels (and movies) on the Civil War is Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize. Few are unfamiliar with the ill-fated love story of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, and the film remains one of the epics of screen history. In All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren’s 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of corruption and redemption, protagonist Jack Burden reflects on a family legacy from the Civil War as he struggles with issues of sin and guilt. Thirty years later a little-known novelist wrote a fictional account of the Battle of Gettysburg in which actual Union and Confederate generals played key roles. Published in a relatively small edition, The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara became an instant hit, and led a re-awakening in Civil War interest. Charles Frazier’s bestseller Cold Mountain, a love story about a Confederate deserter traveling home to his true love, has most recently captured much critical acclaim.



Another important aspect of Civil War collecting is primary historical information, especially that which gives some special insight into the nature of this uniquely American war. Fortunately, this sort of information is abundant, from the autobiographical efforts of leading figures such as Ulysses S. Grant (Personal Memoirs, 1885-86), William Tecumseh Sherman (Memoirs, 1875), Jefferson Davis (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, 1885), and others, to regimental histories and the accounts of individual soldiers, in printed books and manuscript diaries. Supplementing these original sources are a wealth of histories on the war, including the impressive Photographic History of the Civil War (ten volumes, 1911), containing thousands of photographs (many by Mathew Brady) and considered by many the most evocative Civil War history ever written.



Some suggest that the Civil War was the defining moment in this country’s history, before which we were Northerners or Southerners and after which we were Americans. This may or may not be true (ask someone in Columbia, South Carolina, whether they claim the same nationality as William Tecumseh Sherman and you may get an earful), but no other event had such an impact on the national psyche in so short a time. The categories above are simply starting places; as a collector you should feel free to follow whatever particular avenues resonate with you. Whatever you choose, take comfort in knowing that as the inspiration for so many histories, fictional accounts, heroes and legends, the Civil War can sustain a lifetime’s worth of interest.