Tanner's Reads
History isn’t just something I study—it’s something I immerse myself in, one book at a time. In this section, I highlight books that have deepened my understanding of the Civil War, its people, and its lasting impact on America. Whether you're a seasoned historian or just starting to explore the past, these recommendations will help you step into the stories that shaped our nation.
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These books have stayed with me, challenged me, and made history feel alive. I hope they do the same for you.
An Eye for Glory
The Civil War Chronicles of a Citizen Soldier
By: Karl Bacon
A hatred of the enemy consumes Michael during a long and dusty march to Gettysburg. Michael's only desire is to kill as many of the enemy as he can so he can go home. He coldly counts off the rebels that fall to his bullets until he is brought up short by a dying man holding up his Bible. He was a brother in Christ, Michael realizes after the man dies, and "I had hated him with cruel hatred.''
When Michael returns home from the war, his wife, Jessie Anne, sees a man still lost in the horrors of battle, and plagued by doubt and fear. Where is the man she once knew? And where is the faith he once lived by? In the spring of 1869, Michael leaves home once more, this time to return the Bible to the man's widow. This simple journey changes Michael in ways he could have never imagined.
Rebel Yell
The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
By: S.C. Gwynne
General Stonewall Jackson was like no one anyone had ever seen. In April of 1862, he was merely another Confederate general with only a single battle credential in an army fighting in what seemed to be a losing cause. By middle June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the Western World. He had given the Confederate cause what it had recently lacked: hope. In four full-scale battles and six major skirmishes in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Jackson had taken an army that never numbered more than 17,000 men and often had far less, against more than 70,000 Union troops whose generals had been ordered specifically to destroy him. And he had humiliated them, in spite of their best efforts, sent the armies reeling backward in retreat. He had done it with the full knowledge that he and his army were alone in a Union-dominated wilderness and surrounded at all times. He had even beaten a trap designed by Lincoln himself to catch him.​
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Considered one of our country’s greatest military figures, a difficult genius cited as an inspiration by such later figures as George Patton and Erwin Rommel, and a man whose brilliance at the art of war transcends the Civil War itself, Stonewall Jackson’s legacy is both great and tragic in this compelling account, which demonstrates how, as much as any Confederate figure, Jackson embodies the romantic Southern notion of the virtuous lost cause.
On Great Fields
The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
By: Ronald C. White
Award-winning historian Ronald C. White delves into these contradictions in this cradle-to-grave biography of General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. From his upbringing in rural Maine to his tenacious, empathetic military leadership and influential postwar public service, White explores a question that still plagues so many veterans: How do you make a civilian life meaningful after experiencing the extreme highs and lows of war?
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Chamberlain is familiar to millions from Michael Shaara’s now-classic novel of the Civil War, The Killer Angels, and Ken Burns’s timeless miniseries The Civil War, but in this book, White captures the complex and inspiring man behind the hero. This gripping, impeccably researched portrait illuminates one of the most admired but least-known figures in our nation’s bloodiest conflict.
American Ulysses
A Life of Ulysses S. Grant
By: Ronald C. White
A major new biography of the Civil War general and American president, by the author of the New York Times bestseller A. Lincoln. The dramatic story of one of America's greatest and most misunderstood military leaders and presidents, this is a major new interpretation of Ulysses S. Grant. Based on 7 years of research with primary documents, some of them never tapped before, this is destined to become the Grant biography of our times.
Robert E. Lee
A life.
By: Allen C. Guelzo
Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old.
In Robert E. Lee, award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general. The book follows Lee from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.
This Hallowed Ground
A History of the Civil War
By: Bruce Catton
This book is the classic one-volume history of the American Civil War by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. Covering events from the prelude of the conflict to the death of Lincoln, Catton blends a gripping narrative with deep, yet unassuming, scholarship to bring the war alive in an almost novelistic way. It is this gift for narrative that led contemporary critics to compare this book to War and Peace, and call it a "modern Iliad." Now over 50 years old, This Hallowed Ground remains one of the best-loved and admired general Civil War books: a perfect introduction to listeners beginning their exploration of the conflict, as well as a thrilling analysis and reimagining of its events for experienced students of the war.
A. Lincoln
A Biography
By: Ronald C. White
In this important new biography, Ronald C. White, Jr. offers a fresh and fascinating definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity - what today's commentators are calling "authenticity" - whose internal moral compass is the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research, utilizing recently discovered Lincoln letters, legal papers, and photographs, White depicts Lincoln as a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of changing his mind.
The reader is treated to an exploration of Lincoln's compelling words, his changing ideas on slavery, the shaping of the modern role of Commander-in-Chief, and his surprising religious odyssey.
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A. Lincoln, so titled for the way Lincoln signed his name, sheds an innovative and profound light on our nation's most beloved leader for a new generation of Americans.
Lincoln in Private
What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President
By: Ronald C. White
A deeply private man, shut off even to those who worked closely with him, Abraham Lincoln often captured “his best thoughts", as he called them, in short notes to himself. He would work out his personal stances on the biggest issues of the day, never expecting anyone to see these frank, unpolished pieces of writing, which he’d then keep close at hand, in desk drawers and even in his top hat. The profound importance of these notes has been overlooked, because the originals are scattered across several different archives and have never before been brought together and examined as a coherent whole.
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“A fascinating tour inside the mind - and the heart - of Abraham Lincoln.... An important and timeless work.” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of His Truth Is Marching On)