Nearly every week, one or two books about the Civil War arrive at our offices. A recently published pair of ambitious works in this category show that innovative approaches can help a reader see familiar material in new ways.

 

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Nearly every week, one or two books about the Civil War arrive at our offices. A recently published pair of ambitious works in this category show that innovative approaches can help a reader see familiar material in new ways.

The American Civil War: 365 Days , by Margaret E. Wagner (Abrams, 752 pages, $29.95), was published in cooperation with the Library of Congress and takes advantage of that institu-tion’s unparalleled collection of Civil War prints, photographs, documents, and artifacts. Each day of the year gets a two-page spread, most of which is given over to sumptuous pictures and informative text that are unrelated to the date. These entries are loosely organized into 12 categories (Irrepressible Conflict, Wartime Politics, Army Life, etc.), and taken together, they show how the causes of the war, its conduct, and its aftereffects went far beyond the battlefield, reaching into every corner of the country and every level of society.

Less exhaustive but more varied in format is The Civil War Experience, 1861–1865 (Presidio Press, 66 pages, $50.00), by the historian Jay Wertz. Each spread covers one stage of the war in roughly chronological order, with four or five illustrations per page. Tucked or bound into the pages are reproduced documents that can be taken out and read—letters, a Con-federate soldier’s parole after Appomattox, maps, newspapers, orders, soldiers’ drawings. Also included is a 70-minute CD of readings from contemporary sources.

Neither of these books is the first place you’d look to find the date of the Battle of Pigeon’s Ranch. But when it comes to conveying both the epic sweep and the humanizing details of this greatest of American traumas, they will be hard to beat.