A finalist for the 2006 Lincoln Prize, which went to Doris Kearns Goodwin's good but overrated Team of Rivals. Creighton's book pushes past the conventional battlefield definition of courage to examine what it meant to be courageous as a woman, an African American, a German-American, and a non-heroic soldier during the Battle of Gettysburg in particular and the war in general.

The soldier's lot wasn't so great in the Civil War, but women left to manage life at home had it even rougher. Faust's magnificent book refocuses attention to a neglected area.

Who thinks of the Indians when the Civil War is mentioned? Yet the fighting between Indians and U.S. troops during the Civil War years was as intense as any afterwards. And the Indian Wars were fought with the grim no-holds-barred total war attitude that emerged from the Civil War.

Won a 2008 "Honorable Mention," but by-passed for the Lincoln Prize. This is a real shame, because Channing's book is one of the best published in the last decade. Traces the attitude of Union soldiers about abolition as a war aim, and recovers dozens of forgotten voices.

Social history at its best, comparing the POW experiences of a Union and a Confederate soldier. Sadly ignored, probably because it wasn't published by one of the big houses.

We focus on battles as they're fought, and forget that the consequences continue for weeks and months and years afterwards. We also forget the crucial role of women in those post-battle struggles. Jane Schultz's history reawakens us. A 2005 finalist for the Lincoln Prize, which was awarded to (yet another) book glorifying Lincoln.

A brilliant maverick history of the dark Civil War.