Civil War Fiction

Born the daughter of an enslaved woman and a Louisiana plantation owner, Jeannette Bébinn is raised alongside her white half sister—until her father suddenly dies. His vindictive wife refuses twelve-year-old Jeannette her inheritance and sells her into slavery. Now on her own, Jeannette must fight the injustices she faces because of her mixed race. She escapes enslavement and travels from Mississippi to Philadelphia to New York to Ohio, all while searching for purpose, love, and her place in a country torn asunder by the burgeoning Civil War.

Zachary Webster was an innocent Maine farm boy before becoming a sharpshooter, but the violence of the Civil War battlefields has turned him into a natural killer. While home on his unit’s month-long furlough, he murders the man he believes has stolen his beloved. In doing so, he sets into motion three intensely dark journeys—his own as a soldier returning to a brutal and hopeless war; his sweetheart’s as she seeks absolution; and the brother of the murdered man, whose quest for revenge propels him into the most violent of worlds.

England, 1937. Gwen, Noor, Dodo and Vera are four very different teenage girls, with something in common. Their parents are all abroad, leaving them in their English boarding school, where they soon form an intense friendship. The four friends think that no matter what, they will always have each other. Then the war comes. The girls find themselves flung to different corners of the war, from the flying planes in the Air Training Auxiliary to going undercover in the French Resistance.

In 1850 in Massachusetts, Whittaker House stood as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It’s where two freedom seekers, Little Annie and Clementine, hid and perished. Whittaker House still stands, and Little Annie and Clementine still linger, their dreams of freedom unfulfilled. Now a fashionably distressed vacation rental in the Berkshires, Whittaker House draws seekers of another kind: Black women who only appear to be free.

Trouble comes in threes... One doomed love affair after another has made lovely Alex Walton swear off men. Now, she's determined to try something that maybe she can succeed at: a writing career. Little does she know that a chance meeting with a strikingly handsome stranger, a mysterious obelisk...

The Burning Land follows a turbulent romance through the upheavals of the Civil War and America's westward migration. Henry Overstreet, a carpenter, aims to scale the social ladder in Waldoboro, Maine, in his pursuit of Katie Nash. The lovers' path runs through America's bloodiest war—one fought to redeem the nation's soul by freeing a people. Often separated, they use quiet and devoted letters to capture each other's heart as Katie wins teaching jobs usually reserved for men and Henry fights furious battles with Maine's legendary Twentieth Regiment, rising to sergeant.

Longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award Ulysses S. Grant reflects on the crucial moments of his life as a husband, a father, a general, and a president while writing his memoirs and reckoning with his complicated legacy in this epic and intimate work of “superb...

The bitter conflict between the Union and Confederacy, spanning four terrible years from 1861 to 1865, brought the United States of America to the brink of annihilation. A war based on perceived tyranny and rebellion gave birth to many contradictions, where deceit ran rampant on both sides. Within this environment, it is known that at least four hundred women enlisted as soldiers under the pretense of being men, from both the North and South. Brave men who gave their lives for either side were not the war’s only heroes, and this story is dedicated to these remarkable women.

An Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Novel For fans of Jacqueline Winspear and Charles Todd, Murder by Degrees is a “fresh…twisty” (Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author) historical mystery set in 19th-century Philadelphia, following a pioneering woman doctor as she...

May Wilson should have found it suspicious when she was offered a full scholarship to Goodwell College. After all, she barely passed high school. But what shocked her more was that her best friend Abby turned down an IVY League school to attend Goodwell College. During orientation weekend, May and Abby discover that others like themselves have been drawn to this small Christian college. When they figure out why, a war begins.

Back to Wando Passo is a passionate and elegantly written story of two related love triangles: one marriage unraveling in the present day, and another one shattered by the Civil War. The interweaving stories build to a simultaneous crescendo of betrayal, revenge, and redemption.

Wolf’s been promoted. He’s helped bring down one of the South’s greatest generals. Yet his country still has more to ask of him, and the costliest war in America’s history rages on. Sheridan’s cavalry raids west to destroy Confederate infrastructure and divert attention from Grant’s movement south of the killing fields of Cold Harbor. Yet Wade Hampton and his rebel forces have something else in store for the Union Cavalry Corps.

Barcelona 1936. Theo helps the Anarchist workers defeat the army that is trying to overthrow the democratically elected government, and he is reunited with his true love, Maria. But all too soon, his joy turns to terror as the Anarchists turn on him, led by a rival for Maria’s affection. Lucky to escape with his life, Theo returns to England to study at Oxford. But his heart is in Spain, now torn apart by a bloody civil war, and he is quick to abandon his new life when his old schoolmate Esmond offers him the chance to fight the Fascists.

In these stories, characters struggle with allegiances both political and personal, their attempts at independence coinciding with the region’s growing nationalist fervor. Exquisitely attuned to the nuances of familial and cultural history, and beautifully blending pastoral and historical sensibilities, Electrodomésticos is a stunning debut about place, language, and identity, from a promising new voice.

In Avik Jain Chatlani's explosive debut novel, This Country Is No Longer Yours, a chorus of disparate voices comes together to explore how idealists and opportunists betray ordinary people in war-torn Peru. One of our dead writers liked to say, "Peru is a beggar sleeping on a bench made of gold...

Ever since the guns fell silent in July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg has emerged as the defining conflict in our nation's history. American memory has established Gettysburg as the most important, most heroic, most savage battle this nation has ever fought. It has become our Waterloo, our battle of Marathon, our siege of Troy. In this riveting historical reappraisal, esteemed Civil War historian, Thomas A. Desjardin, sets out to examine the truth behind the myth by probing how this battle became legend in American hearts and minds.

SHILOH, 1862 - The Battle of Shiloh, fought in the wilderness of southern Tennessee in April 1862, marked a violent crossroads in the Civil War. What began as a surprise attack by Confederate troops on a Union stronghold to gain control of the Mississippi River Valley became a bloody two-day conflict that would eerily foretell the brutal reality of the next three years.

A bad day off is better than a good day at work. At least that's what Seth thought until his dream vacation of visiting a civil war battleground came to life. Unfortunately, the dead soldiers that had been lying in peace had a hundred-year hunger to feed. Follow Seth and his family to see if they can escape the dead.

In this rousing 1852 romp through the eerie woods surrounding Hannibal, Missouri, and up and down the Mississippi River, 14-year-old Daniel Webster Jackson runs into a counterfeit Underground Railroad when he decides to run away from his foster home. At every turn, he musters courage to survive in a land where the law is at odds with the heart and soul of a people, where the Missouri Compromise forces everyone into a disguise or a secret identity.

This was the American Civil War for many who lived it, overwhelming and ultimately tragic, viewed through the eyes of a courageous youth and an unforgettable young woman.