Each time, I extract something new from them never has my opinion of them lessened from reading them again. In some cases, I've read these books more than once. Nevertheless, the books on this list are, indeed, my all-time favorites - cherished works that have informed and inspired me, sometimes leaving me awestruck. Trying to name the top dozen Civil War books of all time is, admittedly, a brazen act on my part. One needs only ponder the steady stream of books on nearly every aspect of the war that regularly roll off the presses to realize that Americans never seem to get enough of their favorite war. Historians like to say that 60,000 books, give or take a few thousand, have been written about the war, but I'd wager that estimate is way too low.
Putting together such a list is, of course, a nearly impossible task, given the stacks and stacks of excellent books on the Civil War that have been published since 1865. And something more: there'll be no exam next December. If so, I can promise you'll be edified by every one of them, even if they do not end up on your own personal list of favorite Civil War books.
Perhaps your own observance of the sesquicentennial could include reading one of these books a month over the next year.
If, like me, you received a necktie with reindeer on it from Santa instead of a good Civil War book under the Christmas tree, then you might try selecting one for yourself from my own list of the top 12 Civil War books, which I offer here in the spirit of the season and, even more appropriately, as the 150th anniversary of the war is about to begin.
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