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Western Theater Book Recommendations

Are you wanting to build a Western Theater section of your personal library? Or maybe you are interested in expanding your Western Theater knowledge and are looking for a book to do so.

We have you covered.

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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

Two Great Rebel Armies

Richard M. McMurry

The Army of the Cumberland

Days of Glory: The Army of the Cumberland 1861-1865

Larry Daniel

All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio 1861-1862

Gerald Prokopowicz

The Army of the Tennessee

Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee 1861-1865

Steven E. Woodworth

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

Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth

Stephen Douglas Engle

Shiloh

Shiloh: Conquer or Perish

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

Shiloh: In Hell before Night

James Lee McDonough

Shiloh: Bloody April

Wiley Sword

The Shiloh Campaign: March-April 1862

David G. Martin

Shiloh: Confederate High Tide in the Heartland

Steven E. Woodworth

The Generals of Shiloh: Character in Leadership, April 6-7, 1862

Larry Tagg

Corinth

Corinth 1862: Siege, Battle, Occupation

Timothy B. Smith

New Orleans

A Mortal Blow to the Confederacy: The Fall of New Orleans, 1862

Mark F. Bielski

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

Stones River

Battle of Stones River: The Forgotten Conflict between the Confederate Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland

Larry J. Daniel

No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River

Peter Cozzens

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

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

Tullahoma

Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that Changed the Civil War, June 23-July 4, 1863

David A. Powell and Eric J. Wittenberg

Chickamauga

The Chickamauga Campaign-A Mad Irregular Battle: From the Crossing of the Tennessee River Through the Second Day, August 22, September 19, 1863

David A. Powell

The Chickamauga Campaign-Glory to the Grave: The Breakthrough, Union Collapse, and the Retreat to Chattanooga, September 20-23, 1863

David A. Powell

The Chickamauga Campaign-Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21-October 20, 1863

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

Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign

David A. Powell

The Maps of Chickamauga: An Atlas of the Chickamauga Campaign, Including the Tullahoma Operations, June 22-September 23, 1863

David A. Powell, Cartography by David Friedrichs

Chattanooga

All Hell Can't Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga--Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863

David A. Powell

Battle Above the Clouds: Lifting the Siege of Chattanooga and the Battle of Lookout Mountain, October 16-November 24, 1863

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

A Long Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw to the Chattahoochee, May 5-July 18, 1864 

Stephen Davis

All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to City's Surrender, July 18, September 2, 1864

Stephen Davis

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

Baptism of Fire

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.

No Such Army Since the Days of Julius Caesar: Sherman's Carolinas Campaign Fayetteville to Averasboro, March 1865

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

Defending the Arteries of Rebellion: Confederate Naval Operations in the Mississippi River Valley, 1861-1865

Neil P. Chatelain

Mr. Lincoln's Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron

Gary D. Joiner

Strategy and Logistics

Johnsonville: Union Supply Operations on the Tennessee River and the Battle of Johnsonville November 4-5, 1864

Jerry T. Wooten

Confederate Strategy from Shiloh to Vicksburg

Archer Jones

Trans-Mississippi

Wilson's Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It

William Garrett Piston and Richard W. Hatcher III

Cavalry Raids

Morgan's Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio

David L. Mowery

Union Unit Histories

Confederate Unit Histories

Diaries, Correspondence, Memoirs, and Reminiscences 

A Civil War Captain and His Lady: Love, Courtship, and Combat from Fort Donelson through the Vicksburg Campaign

Gene Barr

The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865

Janet Elizabeth Croon and Kimberly Conrad

People Studies

The Battles and Campaigns of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1861-1865

John R. Scales

John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General

Stephen M. Hood

General Grant and the Rewriting of History: How the Destruction of William S. Rosecrans Influenced our Understanding of the Civil War

Frank P. Varney

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