The List
Below you will find our book recommendations on many Western Theater topics. This list is ever growing, with newer books added every few weeks. If the book is in print, we have linked the book title directly to the publisher's website for purchase, the battlefield association/park/friends group that sells it, or another option where it is readily available. We have chosen to link to these places in order to benefit battlefield preservation and help keep the publication of Western Theater titles moving into the future.
The Army of Tennessee
Army of the Heartland: The Army of Tennessee 1861-1862
Thomas L. Connelly
Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee 1862-1865
Thomas L. Connelly
Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army
Larry Daniel
Conquered: Why the Army of Tennessee Failed
Larry Daniel
Cannoneers in Gray: The Field Artillery of the Army of Tennessee
Larry Daniel
Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West
Steven E. Woodworth
Richard M. McMurry
The Army of the Ohio
All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio 1861-1862
Gerald Prokopowicz
The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio
Dennis W. Belcher
The Army of the Cumberland
Days of Glory: The Army of the Cumberland 1861-1865
Larry Daniel
The Army of the Tennessee
Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee 1861-1865
Steven E. Woodworth
Soldiers from Experience: The Forging of Sherman's Fifteenth Army Corps, 1862-1863
Eric Michael Burke
Practical Liberators: Union Officers in the Western Theater During the Civil War
Kristopher A. Teeters
1861-1862 Kentucky Line
Divided Loyalties: Kentucky's Struggle for Armed Neutrality in the Civil War
James W. Finck
The Battle of Belmont: Grant Strikes South
Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, JR.
The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky
Stuart Sanders
The Battle of Wild Cat Mountain
Kenneth A. Hafendorfer
The Most Brilliant Little Victory
Marlitta H. Perkins
Forts Henry and Donelson
Grant Invades Tennessee: The 1862 Battles for Forts Henry and Donelson
Timothy B. Smith
Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862
Kendall D. Gott
Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland
Benjamin Franklin Cooling
Fort Donelson's Legacy: War and Society in Kentucky and Tennessee, 1862-1863
Benjamin
Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth
Stephen Douglas Engle
The River Batteries at Fort Donelson: Construction, Armament, and Battles
M. Todd Cathey and Ricky W. Robnett
Shiloh
Timothy B. Smith
Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862
O. Edward Cunningham, Edited by Gary D. Joiner and Timothy B. Smith
Shiloh: The Battle that Changed the Civil War
Larry Daniel
Attack at Daylight and Whip Them: The Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862
Gregory A. Mertz
James Lee McDonough
Wiley Sword
The Shiloh Campaign: March-April 1862
David G. Martin
Shiloh: Confederate High Tide in the Heartland
Steven E. Woodworth
Decisions at Shiloh: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions that Defined the Battle
David A. Powell
The Generals of Shiloh: Character in Leadership, April 6-7, 1862
Larry Tagg
Corinth
Corinth 1862: Siege, Battle, Occupation
Timothy B. Smith
The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka & Corinth
Peter Cozzens
New Orleans
A Mortal Blow to the Confederacy: The Fall of New Orleans, 1862
Mark F. Bielski
Charles L. Dufour
Mutiny at Fort Jackson: The Untold Story of the Fall of New Orleans
Michael D. Pearson
Kentucky Campaign
The Battle of Richmond, Kentucky: August 30, 1862
Kenneth A. Haffendorfer
Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle
Kenneth W. Noe
Maney's Confederate Brigade at the Battle of Perryville
Stuart Sanders
Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky's Largest Civil War Battle
Stuart Sanders
Banners to the Breeze: The Kentucky Campaign, Corinth, and Stones River
Earl J. Hess
War in Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville
James Lee McDonough
Stones River
Larry J. Daniel
No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River
Peter Cozzens
Force of a Cyclone: The Battle of Stones River, December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863
Caroline Ann Davis and Robert M. Dunkerly
Stones River: Bloody Winter in Tennessee
James Lee McDonough
Vicksburg
Triumph and Defeat: The Vicksburg Campaign Volume One
Terrence J. Winschel
Triumph and Defeat: The Vicksburg Campaign Volume Two
Terrence J. Winschel
Storming Vicksburg: Grant, Pemberton, and the Battles of May 19-22, 1863
Earl J. Hess
Timothy B. Smith
Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1-April 30, 1863
Timohty B . Smith
The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863
Timothy B. Smith
The Union Assaults at Vicksburg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 17-22, 1863
Timothy B. Smith
The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23-July 4, 1863
Timothy B. Smith
Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg
Timothy B. Smith
The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grearson's Epic 1863 Raid Through Mississippi
Timothy B. Smith
Vicksburg: The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi
Michael B. Ballard
Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign that Broke the Confederacy
Donald L. Miller
The Campaign for Vicksburg, 3 Volumes
Edwin C. Bearss
Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign
Warren E. Grabau
Vicksburg is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River
William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winshel
Irregular Warfare in the Western Theater
We Shall Conquer or Die: Partisan Warfare in 1862 Western Kentucky
Derrick Lindow
A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the Civil War
Daniel E. Sutherland
The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865
Robert R. Mackey
Border Wars: The Civil War in Tennessee and Kentucky
Kent T. Dollar, Larry H. Whiteaker, and W. Calvin Dickinson
Tullahoma
Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that Changed the Civil War, June 23-July 4, 1863
David A. Powell and Eric J. Wittenberg
Chickamauga
David A. Powell
David A. Powell
David A. Powell
Bushwhacking on a Grand Scale: The Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863
William Lee White
Holding the Line on the River of Death: Union Mounted Forces at Chickamauga, September 18, 1863
Eric J. Wittenberg
David A. Powell
er 23, 1863
David A. Powell, Cartography by David Friedrichs
River of Death-The Chickamauga Campaign: Volume One: The Fall of Chattanooga
William Glenn Robertson
Chattanooga
David A. Powell
David A. Powell
The Impulse of Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga
David A. Powell
Atlanta Campaign
Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy
Richard McMurry
Fighting for Atlanta: Tactics, Terrain, and Trenches in the Civil War
Earl J. Hess
July 22: The Civil War Battle of Atlanta
Earl J. Hess
Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign
Earl J. Hess
The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta
Earl J. Hess
The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta
Earl J. Hess
Stephen Davis
Stephen Davis
The Atlanta Campaign: Volume One: Dalton to Cassville, May 1-19, 1864
David A. Powell
1864 Middle Tennessee
Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864
William Lee White
For Cause & for Country: A Study of the Affair At Spring Hill & the Battle of Franklin
Eric A. Jacobson
Eric A. Jacobson and Richard A. Rupp
Sherman's March and Bennett Place
Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War's Final Campaign in North Carolina
Ernest A. Dollar Jr.
When Sherman Marched North From the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Homefront
Jacqueline Glass Campbell
Mark A. Smith and Wade Sokolosky
To Prepare for Sherman's Coming: The Battle of Wise's Forks, March 1865
Wade Sokolosky and Mark A. Smith
Calamity in Carolina: The Battles of Averasboro and Bentonville, March 1865
Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt
The Battle Of Bentonville: Last Stand In The Carolinas
Mark L. Bradley
Western Navies
Neil P. Chatelain
Mr. Lincoln's Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron
Gary D. Joiner
Strategy and Logistics
Jerry T. Wooten
The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi
Earl Hess
Confederate Strategy from Shiloh to Vicksburg
Archer Jones
Cavalry Actions
Morgan's Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio
David L. Mowery
Outwitting Forrest: The Tupelo Campaign in Mississippi, June 22 - July 23, 1864
Edwin C. Bearss, edited by David A. Powell
We Shall Conquer or Die: Partisan Warfare in 1862 Western Kentucky
Derrick Lindow
Union Unit Histories
Soldiers From Experience: The Forging of Sherman's Fifteenth Army Corps 1862-1863
Eric Michael Burke
That Body of Brave Men: The U.S. Regular Infantry and the Civil War in the West
Mark W. Johnson
The Battle Rages Higher: The Union's Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry
Kirk C. Jenkins
Blue Lightning: Wilder's Mounted Infantry in the Battle of Chickamauga
Richard A. Baumgartner
To the Mountain of Fire and Beyond: The Fifty-Third Indiana Regiment From Corinth to Glory
Garland A. Haas
Chicago's Battery Boys: The Chicago Mercantile Battery in the Civil War's Western Theater
Richard Brady Williams
Behind the Guns: The History of Battery I, 2nd Regiment, Illinois Light Artillery
Thaddeus C Brown, Samuel J Murphy, William G Putney
Brackett's Battalion: Minnesota Cavalry in the Civil War and Dakota War (5th Iowa)
Kurt D. Bergemann
Redemption: The 71st Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War
Martin Stewart
Henry O. Harden
Confederate Unit Histories
The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home
William C. Davis
Louisianians in the Western Confederacy: The Adams-Gibson Brigade in the Civil War
Stuart Salling
The Pride of the Confederate Artillery: The Washington Artillery in the Army of Tennessee
Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, JR.
Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865
Arthur W. Bergeron, JR.
Diaries, Correspondence, Memoirs, and Reminiscences
Gene Barr
The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865
Janet Elizabeth Croon and Kimberly Conrad
Liddell's Record: St Jon Richardson Liddell
Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, JR.
People Studies
Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy
Earl J. Hess
The Battles and Campaigns of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1861-1865
John R. Scales
The Iron Dice of Battle: Albert Sidney Johnston and the Civil War in the West
Timothy B. Smith
John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General
Stephen M. Hood
Frank P. Varney