American Civil War Bibliography

The American Civil War bibliography comprises books that deal in large part with the American Civil War. This list emphasizes recent titles, especially those that are generally available through academic libraries, inter-library loan or online. There are over 60,000 books on the War, with more appearing each month. There is no complete bibliography to the war; the largest guide to useful books is over 40 years old and lists over 6000 titles selected by leading scholars. Many specialized topics such as Abraham Lincoln, women, and medicine have their own lengthy bibliographies. The books on major campaigns typically contain their own specialized guides to the sources and literature. The most comprehensive guide to the historiography annotates over a thousand titles.

For a guide to the bibliography see:

• Woodworth, Steven E.; ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research.
  Greenwood Press, 1996.
• Eicher, David J. The Civil War in Books An Analytical Bibliography (1997) is an annotated guide to 1100 titles excerpt and text search
• Murdock, Eugene C. Civil War in the North: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography (Garland, 1987), 765pp

For a guide to web sources see:

• Carter, Alice E.; Jensen, Richard. The Civil War on the Web: A Guide to the Very Best Sites—Completely Revised and Updated (2003). Url

For an older short survey that is online and won the Pulitzer Prize (1918), see:

• Rhodes, James Ford. A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865.

For the most recent surveys see:

• Fellman, Michael et al. This Terrible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath (2nd. ed. 2007).
• Donald, David et al. The Civil War and Reconstruction (2001).
• McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-19-503863-7.