Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, by Edward Steers, Jr.
"Hurrah! Old Abe Lincoln has been assassinated!" wrote a South Carolina girl in her diary in 1865, giving palpable voice to the intense anti-Lincoln sentiments of the slaveholders and the South in general. This well-argued, often exciting account of an organized Confederate plot behind John Wilkes Booth's murder of the president both finely synthesizes traditional Lincoln assassination scholarship and proposes new proof and twists on already acknowledged possibilities. Steers, an avocational historian who has written several other books on Lincoln and the assassination, has a sharp ear for historical discordance and a novelist's eye for illuminating detail. Carefully filling in background (from Booth's relationship to theater and politics to the fascinating, complicated trial of co-conspirator Mary Surratt) for the nonspecialized reader, Steers gracefully disentangles a clutter of characters, historical details and hypotheses to prove his own conspiracy theory. Much of this material will be new to the common reader a Confederate plot to use yellow fever as a form of biological warfare against the North; the flight to the Vatican of Mary Surratt's son in an effort to escape prosecution after the assassination but Steers never loses his firm grip on his exciting primary narrative. Although he inclines toward purple prose in his more dramatic moments ("The deed was done. The tyrant was killed. Abraham Lincoln could burn in hell. Sic semper tyrannis!"), his theory is forthrightly and convincingly presented. Less a book for professional historians than U.S. history buffs and Lincoln diehards, this engaging expos‚ makes for provocative reading. 344 pages. Hardcover. Amazon.com

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad , by Jacquelyn L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard
When quiltmaker Ozella McDaniels told Jacqueline Tobin of the Underground Railroad Quilt Code, it sparked Tobin to place the tale within the history of the Underground Railroad. Hidden in Plain View documents Tobin and Raymond Dobard's journey of discovery, linking Ozella's stories to other forms of hidden communication from history books, codes, and songs. Each quilt, which could be laid out to air without arousing suspicion, gave slaves directions for their escape. Ozella tells Tobin how quilt patterns like the wagon wheel, log cabin, and shoofly signaled slaves how and when to prepare for their journey. Stitching and knots created maps, showing slaves the way to safety. 220 pages. Paperback. Amazon.com

Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg , by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Written by General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, this is his account of his participation in the action and the passion of the second day at Gettysburg. 60 pages. Paperback. Amazon.com

Marching Through Culpeper: A Novel of Culpeper, Virginia, Crossroads of the Civil War, by Virginia Beard Morton
Morton's fictional characters are people you can really care about and her story is engrossing...it's a great read. 544 pages. Hardcover. Amazon.com

Our Secret Constitution: How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy, by George P. Fletcher
Although neither a historian nor a political theorist, Fletcher attempts a legalistic revision of American history, claiming that Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was nothing less than a preamble to a second American Constitution, which, seated by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments, reinvented American democracy. The address shifted democracy away from the three original principles of "We the People," individual freedom, and republican elitism, to the new principles of nationhood, equality, and democracy. Although the author's ideas are not as mind-altering as he would have us think (James McPherson, for instance, has already broken ground here with his Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, 1992), his approach, which posits a legalism stoked by religious fervor--although a legalism not of lawmakers and judges but stemming from the survival of historical ideas--is sure to get a wide hearing from the community of historians. 272 pages. Hardcover. Amazon.com

The Confederate Regimental History Digital Library: CD-ROM Version 1.0 , by CivilWarAncestor.com
CivilWarAncestor.com is a specialized electronic publisher that converts rare and out-of-print American Civil War soldier rosters, regimental histories, and personal narratives into an electronic format for increased access by students, history enthusiasts, and genealogists. CD-ROM. Amazon.com

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (Vintage Departures), by Tony Horwitz
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returned from years of traipsing through war zones as a foreign correspondent only to find that his childhood obsession with the Civil War had caught up with him. Near his house in Virginia, he happened to encounter people who reenact the Civil War--men who dress up in period costumes and live as Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks. Intrigued, he wound up having some odd adventures with the "hardcores," the fellows who try to immerse themselves in the war, hoping to get what they lovingly term a "period rush." Horwitz spent two years reporting on why Americans are still so obsessed with the war, and the ways in which it resonates today. In the course of his work, he made a sobering side trip to cover a murder that was provoked by the display of the Confederate flag, and he spoke to a number of people seeking to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Horwitz has a flair for odd details that spark insights, and Confederates in the Attic is a thoughtful and entertaining book that does much to explain America's continuing obsession with the Civil War. 406 pages. Paperback. Amazon.com

The Civil War: An Illustrated History , by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ric Burns
This huge, magnificent pictorial history portrays the Civil War as never before, from the political events leading to the firing of the first shot as Fort Sumter to the surrender at Appomattox Court House. A Companion volume to the forthcoming 9-part Public Television series. 500 photographs. 425 pages. Hardcover. Amazon.com

With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln , by Stephen B. Oates
A masterful biography of Lincoln that follows his bitter struggle with poverty, his self-made success in business and law, his early disappointing political career, and his leadership as President during one of America's most tumultuous periods. 492 pages. Paperback. Amazon.com

Historical Maps of Civil War Battlefields, by Michael Sharpe
As a defining moment in the history of the United States, the Civil War has no equal. Historical Maps of Civil War Battlefields provides a unique view of the war. In over 120 maps this historical record looks at the broad sweep of events from the Southern capture of Ft. Sumter through to the Battle of Gettysburg and Appomattox. Every map has been drawn from the collections of the Library of Congress and the National Archive. 144 pages. Hardcover. Amazon.com