I bought this book at some kind of book fair when I was a kid. I think quite possibly at a school library fair in elementary school. This was about the time I first read Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith and was reading a lot about the Civil War, especially novels where kids were the protagonists. I probably read this book a dozen times as a kid, and I am reading it again for the first time in 25 years probably.

Well, you can imagine then a book written by a North Carolina writer who is clearly not really holding himself accountable to any greater since of reflection about the Civil War, and basically I don’t think this book gets published by a major press today (to be fair, it wasn’t printed by a major press back then either). It’s an artifact of a time, and it talks about the Civil War with no critical eye at all. It’s a collection of facts about the war, presented with for casual reading and certainly hits at no depths. It’s not explicitly offensive, it’s not that kind of book, but, well for example, slavery is not mentioned for the first 100 pages at least. Imagine writing about the Civil War and not even mentioning slavery. It’s fully drenched in Lost Cause nonsense, and well, this was likely the last reread.

(Photo: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/561104.The_Civil_War)