Military Fiction Civil War

In a transformed mid-19th-century America dominated by plantation owners and kept in line by Southern military forces, a mild-mannered academic from Maine, Professor Joshua Chamberlain, stands accused of crimes against the nation. In court alongside him is Abraham Lincoln, whose fiery rhetoric brands him a "threat to the security of the United States of America". Convicted, Chamberlain is sentenced to 40 years hard labor, while Lincoln's fate is indefinite detention at Fortress Monroe.

A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. This is the story of the terrorist campaign that took them away.

Abraham Lincoln delivered what is considered to be the most famous speech ever at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. There are five known copies of this speech in Lincoln’s handwriting, each with a slightly different text. John W Michaels reads from the Bliss copy which appears on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In the background we hear the U.S. Army chorus performing the Battle hymn of the Republic.

One of the great war novels, The Red Badge of Courage describes the first experience of front-line combat through the eyes of a young recruit, Henry Fleming, in one of the battles of the American Civil War. Under the stress of battle, Fleming is forced to face strong, conflicting emotions, ranging from bravado to terror as the conflict ebbs and flows.

1861, Donegal, Ireland. Ten years ago Declan Conaghan’s father died in the Great Famine, and since then, Declan has kept his promise to keep his family out of the workhouse. But all that is threatened with the arrival of new landlord, John Adair. Adair is quick to cause trouble and fear among his tenants. When he turns them off his land, Declan has no option but to break his promise. Declan is in despair until he receives a letter from America offering him the chance of a new life and salvation for his family. But it would mean signing up to the US Army and fighting for Lincoln.

Noted historian Robert Hendrickson has written more than 40 books and has earned critical acclaim for his meticulous historical research and highly accessible style. In The Road to Appomattox, by weaving together passages from diaries, military reports, and newspapers, Hendrickson creates a vivid, firsthand account of the final year of the Civil War.

Before joining the Confederate Army, brothers Joseph and Thomas were actually sisters, Josephine and Libby. But that bloodiest battle, Antietam, leaves Libby widowed. She vows vengeance, dons her husband Arden’s clothes, and sneaks off to enlist with the Stonewall Brigade, swearing to kill one Yankee for every year of her husband’s too-short life. Desperate to protect her grief-crazed sister, Josephine insists on joining her. Surrounded by flying bullets, deprivation, and illness, the sisters are found by other dangers.

1862 was the year that the US Civil War underwent a major ramping up. People on both sides of the fight were confused, angry, and hesitant. Most believed the 'war' would have already been over. Very few people realized to what extent the citizenry was being manipulated to participate in the country's most dividing event in its history. In Longshot in Missouri, we meet Rob Finn - an Irish immigrant farmer living in Wisconsin - and follow him through his introduction to the grueling realities of war within a nation.

Betrothed to Major Samuel Prescott, Amanda sympathizes with the Union, but Alice struggles to forgive the Northern forces that nearly destroyed their home. To make ends meet, Alice smuggles medical supplies for the Confederacy, and she falls in love with Amanda's former beau, Colonel William Jackson. Meanwhile, two opposing armies, devastated by the clash at Fredericksburg, wait for the spring campaign on the banks of the Rappahannock River.

“In this brief sketch of our great Southern hero, I have endeavored to portray, amid the blaze of his matchless military genius, the unchanging rectitude of his conduct, the stern will-power by which he conquered all difficulties, his firm belief in an overruling Providence, and his entire submission to the Divine Will. These traits of character were the cornerstones upon which he reared the edifice of his greatness, and upon which the young people of our day will do well to build."

This is the story of 12-year-old Annie Jewel Bounds, taken from letters and publications of the time; the story of a girl who would have gone off to war with her father, but when he is lost in battle, she convinces her mother to allow her to dress as a Yankee drummer boy and march off with a unit that will be discharged in just six weeks. Her adventure places her in the thick of the fire and smoke at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri. Fought on August 10, 1861, it is the first battle of the Civil War.

Move over, Scarlett O'Hara! It's New England, 1861, and the troubles in the southern states seem a long way off for Jack Edgerton, the spoiled son of a prominent Vermont family. Howver, when he meets and falls in love with Aaron Johnson, the sexy son of a slave on the run from Virginia, Edgerton's world is turned upside down.

Robbers Roost was a hideout for outlaws and hunted men long before Butch Cassidy found it in 1884. The wastelands of the high desert in Southeastern Utah seemed impenetrable. Cut through by canyons along the Green and Colorado rivers, bounded by the Dirty Devil river, the terrain was a natural barrier discouraging lawmen from pursuit.

Hatred of the enemy consumes Michael during a long and dusty march to Gettysburg. Michael's only desire is to kill as many of the enemy as he can so he can go home. He coldly counts off the rebels that fall to his bullets until he is brought up short by a dying man holding up his Bible. He was a brother in Christ, Michael realizes after the man dies, and "I had hated him with cruel hatred.'' When Michael returns home from the war, his wife sees a man still lost in the horrors of battle.

On the battlefields of the Civil War, the instincts of a warrior are awakened in an Iowa farm boy. “There is no tougher man on the field of fight,” General Sherman says of this Iowan, and Nathan Chambers rises to the rank of Brigadier General. It’s during the savagery of Sherman’s March to the Sea, that Nathan’s little brother comes to visit him on the front. It’s Ethan who moves Nathan to remember that life is more than bugle calls, long marches and bloody battles. It’s Ethan who reawakens in Nathan his love for the green fields of home. "Ethan’s Peach Tree" is a glimpse ...

The Burning Land follows a turbulent romance through the upheavals of the Civil War and America's westward migration. Henry Overstreet, a carpenter, aims to scale the social ladder in Waldoboro, Maine, in his pursuit of Katie Nash. The lovers' path runs through America's bloodiest war—one fought to redeem the nation's soul by freeing a people. Often separated, they use quiet and devoted letters to capture each other's heart as Katie wins teaching jobs usually reserved for men and Henry fights furious battles with Maine's legendary Twentieth Regiment, rising to sergeant.

Trapped in what appears to be an endless bloodbath - vividly presented with Heffernan's meticulous historical research - three boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath. The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man.

Junior Thompson, son of a freed slave, and Webbie Henderson, son of a wealthy family, cross a forbidden boundary between their properties and forge an unlikely friendship in the years that culminate in the Civil War. Young as they are, both must become the men of their families when their fathers are called to battle. When the war comes to their hometown of Carlisle and nearby Gettysburg, will they survive?

Ever since the guns fell silent in July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg has emerged as the defining conflict in our nation's history. American memory has established Gettysburg as the most important, most heroic, most savage battle this nation has ever fought. It has become our Waterloo, our battle of Marathon, our siege of Troy. In this riveting historical reappraisal, esteemed Civil War historian, Thomas A. Desjardin, sets out to examine the truth behind the myth by probing how this battle became legend in American hearts and minds.

Rob Finn is joined by William Cody and Lonnie Walters as they begin their journey into the gold country of the west in 1862. Rob meets desperate and unscrupulous men such as Henry Plummer, as well as gentle and generous natives who heal and help the strangers in their land. We learn that the treasures of the earth are sought by greedy men on both sides of the Civil War, while lasting friendships are the goal of and reward for precious few hearty souls.