Newer Civil War Fiction

Devil’s Dream / by Madison Smartt Bell

In the years leading up to the Civil War, soon-to-be Confederate General

Nathan Bedford Forrest marries a woman, has a child and adopts the position of slave owner in the rural south. Fast forwarding in time to Sherman’s march, which targeted Forrest directly, the general tries to fend off the South’s inevitable defeat as he looks back on his past. (FIC BELL)

Sweetsmoke: A Novel / by David Fuller

Cassius is a secretly educated slave on a tobacco plantation in Virginia.

 While the Civil War rages on around him, Cassius is pursuing his own cause: to find out who killed his adoptive mother, a free black woman named Emoline Justice. Setting out on the road, employing various aliases and ruses to avoid suspicion, Cassius encounters a world seemingly bent on chaos as he confronts soldiers, slave traders, spies, slaves both free and those still unliberated in his determined quest. (FIC FULLER)

Escape From Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War / by Gene Hackman
Following capture by a Confederate regiment in 1864, Union Captain NathanParker and 23 of his men are transported to Andersonville prison in Georgia where deplorable treatment prompts Parker to hatch an escape plan. After the daring plan is carried off and the Captain finds himself on the outside, he formulates another daring plan: to improvise a scheme to rescue his remaining troops. (FIC HACKMAN)

Home Land: A Novel / by Barbara Hambly
As a nation goes to war and tensions rise between North and South, two

 women become close friends as pen pals sharing their lives to each other via correspondence. Susanna Ashford, a plantation owner’s wife, and Cora Poole, who lives on an isolated Maine island, find that they have more in common than just liking the same books. They also share a common bond of peace and companionship in a time of conflict. (FIC HAMBLY)

All Other Nights: A Novel / by Dara Horn
In 1862, Jacob Rappaport, a jew, runs away from home and enlists in the Union army where it doesn’t take for his superiors to catch wind of who he really is. Jacob comes from a very powerful mercantile family whose holdings are headquartered in both the South and the North. The 19-year-old is quickly employed as a spy to help the Union get an edge on the supply end of things. But when he’s assigned to infiltrate a Confederate spy, a young jewess named Eugenia Levy, Jacob finds that his mission has become endangered by his growing attraction to the girl. (FIC HORN)

Hallam’s War / by Elisabeth Payne Rosen
Leaving Charleston for what they think will be a better life in Tennessee, Hugh and Serena Hallam have set up shop at a farm called Palmyria with their

three children and 12 slaves. With war on the horizon, the Hallams are still hopeful that a peaceful resolution will come. But when the conflict can no longer be put off and war is declared, Hugh, a West Point graduate, heads off to fight for the Confederacy leaving Serena to deal with what is already the daunting task of running the farm. (FIC ROSEN)