10 Best Novels About the Civil War

[Gene C]

There are lots of different list, this one is by the Christian Science Monitor, and it's pretty good. I am familiar with the first 7 books or movies made from them. Have you read any of them? Did you like the movie or the book better? Which ones would you recommend? Who do you think got left off the list?

the 10 Novels are:
1. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
2. North and South by John Jakes
3. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
4. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
5. Oldest Confederat Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus
6. Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
7. Shiloh by Shelby Foote
8. March by Geraldine Brooks
9. The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
10. The March by E L Doctorow

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/prin...es-Frazier

Number 9 sounds interesting. Anyone read it?
Would you please start a seperate thread if you want to start a discussion on a specific book. It will make it easier to look it up later.

[BettyO]

Quote:the 10 Novels are:
1. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
2. North and South by John Jakes
3. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
4. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
5. Oldest Confederat Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus
6. Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
7. Shiloh by Shelby Foote
8. March by Geraldine Brooks
9. The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
10. The March by E L Doctorow

Of these novels, I'd have to say that MY personal favorite, of course, is Gone with the Wind followed by The Killer Angels and Red Badge of Courage -

Of course, GWTW is more a historical romance than about the actual fighting - but Mitchell based it on Mary Johnston's CW books - The Long Roll and Cease Firing about the Stonewall Brigade during the war and published in the early half of the 20th Century.

Red Badge is, of course, a classic - and I'm surprised that McKinley Kantor's Andersonville didn't make the list - particularly above Jakes' romantically overwrought North and South "fluff"....Foote's Shiloh is another "do not miss"....

Another one that didn't make the list is our own Wild Bill's Last Confederate Heroes - I know I keep stressing it, but it's the best assassination novel I've ever read - don't miss it.....

[Linda Anderson]

Three other Civil War novels I have enjoyed are:

1. The Last Confederate Heroes by William Richter (Wild Bill of this forum) which is an extensively footnoted novel about John Wilkes Booth and the plot to kill Lincoln.

2. Good Lord Bird: A Novel by James McBride which won the National Book Award for Fiction about a young boy who is mistaken for a girl and rides with abolitionist John Brown and his band of men.

3. Lincoln by Gore Vidal which is told from the point of view of Seward, Chase, Mary Lincoln, John Hay, Davey Herold and others.

[L Verge]

I agree with Betty and Linda as far as Last Confederate Heroes belonging on that list - and Andersonville (though it has been many, many moons since I read it).

I read and thoroughly enjoyed #9, Widow of the South, which is based on a true story.

[RJNorton]

I have not read The Killer Angels, but I think the movie Gettysburg was based on it. I absolutely loved that movie. The Red Badge of Courage was required reading when I was in high school. I have Last Confederate Heroes on my computer but haven't finished it - it is indeed excellent.

[brtmchl]

I haven't read about half of these books listed. I loved " The Killer Angels." The movie Gettysburg was based off of this book. I remember when I first saw the movie. I was still in the service and our company commander took all non commissioned officers to the theater. The movie was used as a lesson in leadership traits.
"The Red Badge of Courage" still reminds me of my childhood. I read this book many times. Like Roger mentioned, it was required reading in school. I also remember having it in an old comic book form.
I will have to go shopping soon. Laurie, what do you have in stock? I haven't read Wild Bill's book yet. That seems like a good place to start. Betty also mentioned a book in a past post about Sherman's March.
I know I will take some heat on this, but I have tried many times and have never been able to get through "Gone With The Wind." It is so slow, my eyes start to cross and I want to fall asleep. My wife yells at me all the time. It is one of her favorites.

[LincolnToddFan]

I read Gore Vidal's Lincoln when it first came out 30 years ago. I enjoyed it and didn't understand why it was so controversial. I did not enjoy a lot of GV's later material and his politics toward the end made me wonder about his mental health...but I thought Lincoln was first-rate.

I read The Oldest Living Confederate War Widow. I was extremely troubled by the description of the wedding night between the bride and the much older(TOO old, imo) groom. It was nothing short of rape, and I admit it affected my ability to truly enjoy the rest of the novel.

I read Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women when I was about 12...adored it, even though I was crying my eyes out when Beth died. I didn't really like the film. I thought Liz Taylor as a blond Amy was silly and miscast, same as Peter Lawford's Laurie. But it was a good Civil War fiction novel. A kind of Northern counterpart to GWTW.

Many years ago I watched a movie called "Raintree County"(1959) with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift on Turner Classic Movies. Clift played an idealistic Union soldier who is seduced by and falls in love with a mentally unbalanced Southern belle (Taylor) at the outbreak of the war. It dragged in parts, but I thought it was a wonderful, haunting movie.

Then there's Gone With The Wind. I read it when I was 13, and saw the film when I was 16. I enjoyed both. As history, I felt then and still do that it was mostly fantasy. But for entertainment, it can't be beat.

[RJNorton]

(06-04-2014 11:05 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  I read Gore Vidal's Lincoln when it first came out 30 years ago. I enjoyed it and didn't understand why it was so controversial.

Hi Toia. Regarding the controversy - hopefully I am not confusing books here, but as I recall, some Lincoln historians didn't like Gore Vidal stating that Abraham Lincoln had contracted syphilis and then adding that he communicated the disease to Mary thus accounting for Mary's mental instability. As far as I know Herndon's word is the only "evidence" Lincoln ever had syphilis, and in other threads we have discussed the reliability/lack of reliability of Herndon as a source of facts.

[BettyO]

Toia,

You can buy Raintree County by Ross Lockridge. It was published in 1948. I have it in my library and read it years ago. It's better than the movie (books always are!) Unfortunately, Mr. Lockridge committed suicide shortly after writing it.

A similar novel is Robert Penn Warren's Band of Angels. I read that one years ago also. It is also one of Clark Gable's last films.

[LincolnToddFan]

Betty

Thanks for the heads up about "Raintree". I agree about books being better than the films most of the time. As much as I enjoyed GWTW, I found the book far more interesting.

I own the movie Band of Angels, but never read the book. Clark Gable basically reprised his role as Rhett Butler in "Band", imo.

How sad about the author of Raintree County!

[L Verge]

I thought about Raintree County last night. I can still see in my mind exactly where that book was on my mother's bookshelf.

Mike - as for GWTW, don't worry that you can't get through it. It's a girley thing.

[LincolnToddFan]

(06-05-2014 04:48 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 11:05 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  I read Gore Vidal's Lincoln when it first came out 30 years ago. I enjoyed it and didn't understand why it was so controversial.

Hi Toia. Regarding the controversy - hopefully I am not confusing books here, but as I recall, some Lincoln historians didn't like Gore Vidal stating that Abraham Lincoln had contracted syphilis and then adding that he communicated the disease to Mary thus accounting for Mary's mental instability. As far as I know Herndon's word is the only "evidence" Lincoln ever had syphilis, and in other threads we have discussed the reliability/lack of reliability of Herndon as a source of facts.

Roger-

Okay...thanks. Now I remember. I read it so long ago, and I do remember GV's portrayal of an adoring but mad-as-a-hatter MTL. I guessed I suppressed the memory of what GV implied had caused it.

Herndon! If only AL's famous foresight had warned him about all the mayhem this "friend" would cause his family and his legacy!

[L Verge]

(06-04-2014 12:23 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I agree with Betty and Linda as far as Last Confederate Heroes belonging on that list - and Andersonville (though it has been many, many moons since I read it).

I read and thoroughly enjoyed #9, Widow of the South, which is based on a true story.

I have more time today to elaborate on this novel based on history. Google "Carnton Plantation" for full details, but the story is based around the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, in the fall of 1864, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The Plantation was very near the action, and the home became a field hospital. When the house couldn't hold any more patients, they were sent all around the grounds.

At one point there were four dead Confederate generals laid out at the same time on the home's back porch. The house is open to tours today, and you can still see the blood stains on the floors where surgeons conducted amputations and other surgeries. Supposedly, the stack of discarded limbs that were thrown outside was taller than the smokehouse.

After the battle, the owners - John and Carrie McGavock - arranged for the burial of about 1500 of the Confederate dead on several acres adjacent to the family's burial ground. Carrie marked and maintained those graves until her death years later. They were her boys - hence she became the Widow of the South.

I first learned of this story and book from one of the volunteers at Surratt House who is writing a book on the Battle of Franklin. The plantation remained in the McGavock family until the widow of their son sold it in the 20th century. It is now operated by a trust in connection with the battlefield.

BTW: The burial acreage for those Civil War dead represents the largest, privately owned, military cemetery in the U.S.

[BettyO]

Two "old" novels (early 20th Century, rather) are The Battleground by Ellen Glasgow and Clifford Dowdey's Bugles Blow No More about life in Antebellum and war-torn Richmond, VA.

Both are rather obscure and the stories are based in Virginia. They are fairly good; I think that Dowdey's book is one of the better. I read these years ago when I was a girl and loved Battleground because the heroine was a redhead named "Betty!"

[L Verge]

I suspect that The Widow of the South book that I just described (post #15) is available in electronic format too.

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(06-05-2014 08:38 AM)HerbS Wrote:  I forgot to mention"Raintree County".I will never forget"Shenendoah".I am being remiss if I don't mention my mentor's book[Castel] "William Clarke Quantrill".

Speaking of Shenandoah, Surratt House has a movie night each year. This fall, the movie will be Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart.