Our Trail to the Civil War

Civil War Resources- Fall 2006- Winter 2007

Someone asked me about the things we found for the Civil War, so I thought I would post them here. We are still going.. I have a basket full of books/tapes/videos we are sorting through. If I find more gems I will add them.

The first four items were the centerpiece for us! The film that Ken Burns did was just extraordinary- and encompassed 5 DVDs that we have watched over and over.

We all loved Across Five Aprils, an historical fiction book written for older children.

Killer Angels was killer! The audio version we had told at the end of how the author got interested in Gettysburg and researched this book for 7 years. It is the story of a handful of players in the battle, Lee, Grant, Chamberlain, Longstreet and others. It is from their personal view and really brings history to life.

And the (audio) book of short stories really seemed to weave the history together for me. I find Stephen Crane a bit hard to understand and he wrote the first story, but the rest I had no problem with. Well, the last one was a doctor's account and got pretty graphic with the wounds he treated, etc, so I skipped that.

These are a mix of adult and children's things, and I put the ages by the ones that were not adult. Hope to add more later!

These combined with lots of discussion has been a great forray into the Civil War for us.

The Civil War- A Film by Ken Burns (PBS Documentary)- centerpiece (teen-adult)

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (audio narrated by George Hearn) Ages 12 and up

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt (we enjoyed audio and print) Ages 10 and up.


The Little Regiment & Other Great Civil War stories [sound recording] / [edited by Martin Greenberg]
Stories included: The little regiment / Stephen Crane (David Ackroyd) -- The die-hard / Stephen V. Benet (William Windom) -- The brothers / Louisa May Alcott (Gabrielle de Cuir) -- One of the missing / Ambrose Bierce (Stefan Rudnicki) -- The valley was still / Manly Wade Wellman (Richard Gilliland) -- The unknown soldier / Kristine K. Rusch (Dan Musselman) -- The lamp of psyche / Edith Wharton (Amanda Karr) -- How Stonewall came back / James Warner Bellah (William Windom) -- The locket / Kate Chopin (Judith Cummings) -- The face / Ed Gorman (William Sanderson).


The Civil War- An Illustrated History (companion coffee table book to Ken Burns’ film)

The Civil War- A Narrative by Shelby Foote (teen- adult)- partial- a bit dry, but good after I had learned some background.

Bull Run by Paul Fleishman – Recorded Books, full cast. Ages 10 and up

Lincoln A PhotoBiography Russell Freedman (10 and up)

Great Battles of the Civil War- John MacDonald (coffee table book- computer aided graphic reconstruction of the battles)

Gettysburg – Movie based on Killer Angels book.