Further Reading On Civil War Guerillas and "What Ifs?"

At last night's event several questions were asked about the role of guerillas in the Civil War as well as about "turning points" in the Civil War which, had they occured differently, might have changed the course of the war and its outcome.

To further answer those (good!) questions, we are recommending three books...

The first is Donald Sutherland's book, A Savage Conflict, the first work to treat guerrilla warfare as critical to understanding the course and outcome of the Civil War. It is available at Amazon here:

The second is Mark Grimsley's work, The Hard Hand of War, which explores the Union army's policy of destructive attacks upon Southern property and civilian morale--how it evolved, and what it was like in practice.

The third deals with the "what if?" question, and is hot off the presses. Called The Great “What Ifs” of the American Civil War: Historians Tackle the Conflict’s Most Intriguing Possibilities, it comes from several historians associated with a group called the Emerging Civil War (check out their interesting blog!). Excellent!