Popular Historical Fiction: U.S. Civil War

All Other Nights by Dara Horn (2009)

Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, struggles with difficult moral questions when he is ordered to murder his own uncle, who has been plotting an assassination attempt against President Lincoln, a situation that becomes more challenging when Jacob is subsequently directed to marry a suspected spy.

The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright (2006)

Born in 1844 in upstate New York, Liberty Fish finds himself deeply conflicted as he reconciles the influence of his parents, ardent abolitionists, and his grandparents, Carolina slaveholders.

Armored Giants by Francis van Wyck Mason (1980)

Armored Giants is the final work of van Wyck Mason, a master of historical fiction. It is a high-spirited action and adventure story full of intrigue, colorful characters, heroism, and all the gallantry and tragedy expected of the Civil War's ironclad naval campaigns.

Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead (2007)

When Robey Childs's mother experiences a premonition about her husband, a Civil War soldier, she sends her only son to retrieve his father from the battlefield, accompanied by a horse that becomes his only companion as he makes his way through the destruction of war.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (1997)

Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the woman he loved there years before. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, Ada is trying to revive her father's derelict farm and learn to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory.

Fire on the Waters by David Poyer (2001)

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Eli Eaker enlists in the Union Navy against his father's wishes and joins Captain Parker Trezevant who is sailing south to protect Fort Sumter. This is Poyer's first of three novels on Civil War naval warfare. See also A Country of Our Own (2003) and That Anvil of Our Souls (2005).

The Fires of Pride by William R. Trotter (2003)

Chronicles events of the Civil War in the South following the disaster at Gettysburg, focusing on the clash between Union and Confederate ironclads which affected the outcome of the war and changed the course of warfare.

Freedom by William Safire (1987)

This epic Civil War novel depicts both minor and major characters of the war, including a politically devious, grimly humorous, and sometimes cruel President Lincoln.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)

Pulitzer Prize-winning Gone with the Wind tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, a headstrong Georginian Southern belle during the Civil War and Reconstruction. See also its sequel Scarlett (1991) by A. Ripey.

House Divided by Ben Ames Williams (1947)

A Confederate family -- three brothers and two sisters -- learn one-by-one that their father was Lincoln's grandfather. The expectant shockwaves are traced in elongated detail making this novel of Southern, Civil War civilians a true epic. 1,514 pages.

I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires by Cathy Gohlke (2008)

Seventeen-year-old Robert Glover finds himself in danger, and charged as a spy, as he heads south to help his estranged mother during the Civil War.

The Judas Field by Howard Bahr (2006)

In 1885, haunted by his devastating memories of the Civil War, Cass Wakefield journeys from his Mississippi hometown with with his childhood friend Alison, a dying woman, who persuades him to accompany her to Franklin, Tennessee, to recover the bodies of her brother and father, a quest that reawakens Cass's vivid recollections.

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1974)

Penetrating portraits of Lee, Longstreet, and other Civil War leaders are interwoven with historical detail to provide a fictional recreation of the bloody battle at Gettysburg. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A modern classic.

The Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara (1998)

Jeff Shaara, the son of author Michael Shaara, presents a companion to his father's Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War novel The Killer Angels, which follows the continuing battles between Grant and Lee.

 

March by Geraldine Brooks (2005)

In a story inspired by the father character in Little Women and drawn from the journals and letters of Louisa May Alcott's father Bronson, a man leaves behind his family to serve in the Civil War and finds his marriage and beliefs profoundly challenged by his experiences.

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira (2010)

Traveling to Civil War-era Washington, D.C., to tend wounded soldiers and pursue her dream of becoming a surgeon, headstrong midwife Mary receives guidance from two smitten doctors and resists her mother's pleas for her to return home.

Rebel by Bernard Cornwell (1993)

Nate Starbuck, a Confederate soldier who hails from Boston, plays a crucial role in First Bull Run -- the first great battle of the American Civil War. Book 1 of the Starbuck Chronicles.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895)

The glory, pride, horror, and cowardice that are associated with war are depicted in a classic account of a young soldier's Civil War experiences, in a new edition of the masterful novel, first published in 1895.

Redemption Falls by Joseph O'Connor (2007)

Having escaped the Irish famine only to become embroiled in America's Civil War, Eliza sets out on a mysterious cross-country quest, while a poetess denies other suitors to take up with a mercurial revolutionary, and a rebel guerilla sets out on a brutal rampage across the West.

To Make Men Free by Richard Croker (2004)

A fictional account of the Civil War battle of September 1862 which brings together Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and others, recreating the events that turned the tide in favor of the North and cleared the path for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Until the End by Harold Coyle (1996)

This sequel to Look Away follows the estranged brothers James and Kevin Bannon in the final battles of the Civil War.

The Unvanquished by William Faulkner (1938)

Told by Bayard Sartoris, a Confederate adolescent, The Unvanquished is one of Faulkner's most accessible novels. The drama highlights the courage, bravery and sacrifice of the Sartoris family as they try to sidestep the Union's threatening advance. Readers who anticipate some of Faulkner's common themes--a sense of honor, the importance of family, race relations, etc.—will not be disappointed.

White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke (2002)

Despite their misgivings about "the Cause," Willie Burke and his best friends, three young men from Louisiana, enlist in the Confederate Army and head off to war.

Updated 6/12

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