Books I Bought While on Vacation

In June we went on vacation, and I bought some books. We went to a couple of National Parks and a few museums. All historical of course.

The first set of books I bought from the Andersonville Prison.

Andersonville Civil War Prison By: Robert Scott Davis

Andersonville (Camp Sumter) Civil War prison was only in operation for little more than one year, from 1864 into 1865. In just a few of those months, however, it became the largest city in Georgia and the fifth largest city in the Confederate States of America. During that time, it also became America’s deadliest prison. Of the almost forty thousand captured Federal soldiers, sailors and civilians who entered its gates, some thirteen thousand died there. Thousands more died as a result of their time in this stockade of legend in deep southwest Georgia. Join historian Robert Davis as he tells the story of this infamous Confederate prison.

Andersonville: A story of Rebel Military Prisons By: John McElroy

This is his memoirs about his stay at the prison. It is from 1864-1865

The Last Full Measure By: Jeff Shaara

This book is about the prison but the third book about Gettysburg.

As The Last Full Measure opens, Gettysburg is past and the war advances to its third brutal year. On the Union side, the gulf between the politicians in Washington and the generals in the field yawns ever wider. Never has the cumbersome Union Army so desperately needed a decisive, hard-nosed leader. It is at this critical moment that Lincoln places Ulysses S. Grant in command–and turns the tide of war.

For Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg was an unspeakable disaster–compounded by the shattering loss of the fiery Stonewall Jackson two months before. Lee knows better than anyone that the South cannot survive a war of attrition. But with the total devotion of his generals–Longstreet, Hill, Stuart–and his unswerving faith in God, Lee is determined to fight to the bitter end.

Here too is Joshua Chamberlain, the college professor who emerged as the Union hero of Gettysburg–and who will rise to become one of the greatest figures of the Civil War.

Battle by staggering battle, Shaara dramatizes the escalating confrontation between Lee and Grant–complicated, heroic, deeply troubled men. From the costly Battle of the Wilderness to the agonizing siege of Petersburg to Lee’s epoch-making surrender at Appomattox, Shaara portrays the riveting conclusion of the Civil War through the minds and hearts of the individuals who gave their last full measure.

Full of human passion and the spellbinding truth of history, The Last Full Measure is the fitting capstone to a magnificent literary trilogy.

Now the books I bought when we were in Vicksburg, Mississippi

Vicksburg By: Donald L. Miller

The astonishing story of the longest and most decisive military campaign of the Civil War in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which opened the Mississippi River, split the Confederacy, freed tens of thousands of slaves, and made Ulysses S. Grant the most important general of the war.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldn’t do it. General Grant moved his army south and joined forces with Admiral Porter, but even together they could not come up with a successful plan. At one point Grant even tried to build a canal so that the river could be diverted away from Vicksburg.

In Vicksburg, Donald L. Miller tells the full story of this year-long campaign to win the city. He brings to life all the drama, characters, and significance of Vicksburg, a historic moment that rivals any war story in history. Grant’s efforts repeatedly failed until he found a way to lay siege and force the city to capitulate. In the course of the campaign, tens of thousands of slaves fled to the Union lines, where more than twenty thousand became soldiers, while others seized the plantations they had been forced to work on, destroying the economy of a large part of Mississippi and creating a social revolution.

Ultimately, Vicksburg was the battle that solidified Grant’s reputation as the Union’s most capable general. Today no general would ever be permitted to fail as often as Grant did, but in the end he succeeded in what he himself called the most important battle of the war, the one that all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy.

My Cave Life in Vicksburg By: A Lady

I learned something new while I visited the small museum. I didn’t realize that the citizens of Vicksburg hid in the caves.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world’s literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Sultana By: Alan Huffman

I bought this book at a small independent store. This is something else I learned about when I visited Andersonville Prison. They didn’t have the book at their store but when we went to this little store, and they had it I of course had to pick it up.

“One of the most riveting war stories I have ever read….Huffman’s smooth, intimate prose ushers you through this nightmare as if you were living it yourself.”
—Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm   The dramatic true story of the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history, Alan Huffman’s Sultana brings to breathtaking life a tragic, long forgotten event in America’s Civil War—the sinking of the steamship Sultana and the loss of 1,700 lives, mostly Union soldiers returning home from Confederate prison camps. A gripping account that reads like a nonfiction Cold Mountain, Sultana is powerful, moving, rich in irony and fascinating historical detail—a story no history aficionado or Civil War buff will want to miss.

Jefferson Davis: Man of the Hour By: Gordon A. Cotton

This is a collection of stories and essays. I picked up this book from the museum called the Old Court House.

Joseph Biedenharn: The First Bottler of Coca-Cola 1894

This is a little booklet about the first bottler of Coke. The museum was very small, but they had some interesting equipment.

I had a great time on vacation, and I learned some things that I didn’t know about history. We have another historical trip planned this year and of course I will probably pick up some more books. You are never too late or old to learn something new. Until net time, keep reading.