Killer Angels
by Michael Shaara

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought for two dreams -- freedom, and a way of life. Memories, promises, and love were carried into the battle but what fell was shattered futures, forgotten innocence and crippled beauty.

A New Jersey native and Rutgers University graduate, Michael Shaara published his first stories shortly after he graduated in 1952. It was a family trip to Gettysburg, Pa., in 1966 that gave him the inspiration for his greatest achievement, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels, published in 1974. Shaara died in 1988.

Wilson's Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It
by William G. Piston and Richard W. Hatcher

On Saturday morning, August 10, 1861, soldiers from Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and United States Regulars clashed near Wilson's Creek, just 10 miles southwest of Springfield. When the battle was over, Union troops retreated to Rolla while the victorious Southern army occupied Springfield. Though the battle and its aftermath have been the subject of a few books, none covers it with the depth of Wilson's Creek: the Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It. Wilson's Creek profiles common soldiers and the communities that supported them. The human interest impact of this approach ensures the book will appeal to more than just military buffs. Central to the story is controversial Union general Nathaniel Lyon, who was at the center of Missouri's entry into the war. The authors provide a balanced account of his often extra-legal but sometimes necessary actions in St. Louis. Although Wilson's Creek did not determine Missouri's future in the Union, hundreds of citizens were forced to choose a side in the summer of 1861. The campaign also drew national attention to the struggle for Missouri and set the stage for the decisive Battle of Pea Ridge, Ark., in March 1862.

Dr. William Piston has taught in the history department at Missouri State University since 1988, specializing in American military history and the Civil War and Reconstruction. He is the author of four highly acclaimed books about the Civil War. Richard W. Hatcher III is a historian at Fort Sumter National Monument.

Jesse James: The Last Rebel of the Civil War
by T.J. Stiles

More than just an outlaw, Jesse James symbolizes Missouri's Civil War-era strife. While numerous biographers have detailed James' daring exploits, few have placed his activities in their proper historical context like T.J. Stiles. This approach makes the book more than just a biography of the famous outlaw. It provides a fascinating description of life in Missouri prior to and just after the Civil War. Missouri's ex-Confederates like James lost their citizenship in 1865. Therefore, Stiles argues that he was not a Robin Hood-like figure who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Instead, Jesse James remained a Confederate sympathizer who applied the skills he learned as a wartime guerrilla to a life of crime. Like other biographers, Stiles describes James' adventurous life, even though the reader is never far away from Missouri's turbulent post-war political scene.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author T.J. Stiles began his independent writing career while working for Oxford University Press. His independent study of 19th century America, particularly the Civil War era, led to his awareness of the significant impact on the making of modern America. In the author's words: "My desire to write a large-scale, original narrative about the period led me to the subject of Jesse James, who had been underestimated as a significant, purposeful, and political figure."

Confederate Girlhoods: A Women's History of Early Springfield, Missouri
edited by Craig A. Meyer

One of Springfield's founding families, the Campbells, were prodigious writers whose memoirs, correspondence and fiction portray four generations of pioneer women. Focusing on writings from 1855 to 1905, Confederate Girlhoods presents these women's view of Indians and early settling; of slavery and Southern patriotism; of war and its social, political, economic aftermath; of the railroad and westward migration; of an Ozarks community's early efforts at conservation and civic commemoration.

Craig A. Meyer is a graduate of the Missouri State University English Department's masters program.

From Battlefields Rising: How the Civil War Transformed American Literature
by Randall Fuller

From Battlefields Rising explores the profound impact of the war on writers including Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson and Frederick Douglass. Calling into question every prior presumption and ideal, the war forever changed America's early idealism -- and consequently its literature – into something far more ambivalent and raw. Sketching an absorbing group portrait of the period's most important writers, From Battlefields Rising flashes with forgotten historical details and elegant new ideas. It alters previous perceptions about the evolution of American literature and how Americans have understood and expressed their common history.

Randall Fuller is associate professor of English at Drury University, and the author of Emerson's Ghosts: Literature, Politics, and the Making of Americanists. He is the recipient of an NEH fellowship, and the director of the university's Honor Program.

The River Between Us
by Richard Peck

Peck's spare writing sets an eloquent stage for this powerful mystery. When 15-year-old Tilly Pruitt's family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to live in a small, southern Illinois town, the Pruitt's family's lives are changed forever. Reviewers describe Peck's writing as "masterful," as he relates "the female Civil War experience, the subtle and not-too-subtle ways the country was changing, and the split in loyalty that separated towns and even families."

Newbery-winning author Richard Peck has written a range of books for young adults, melding humor and warmth in titles such as the 2010 Big Read feature, A Long Way from Chicago, to thought-provoking stories dealing with social issues such as death and censorship. His writing and storytelling skills shine in his titles that portray fictional stories set in robust, historical settings.

Nine Months in the Infantry Service of the U.S.: A personal narrative of incidents experienced and observed in the Home Guards and Phelps Regiments
by R.P. Matthews

Robert Pinkney Matthews wrote Nine Months in the Infantry Service more than 20 years following the Civil War. His purpose was to leave for his family a written account of a critical time during his youth: the beginning of the American Civil War and his early war service in southwest Missouri.

Matthews was a Greene County resident during the 1860s. As such he witnessed the 1860 election and the subsequent southern states' secession from the Union. His accounts include warnings, underlying threats against him and ostracism over his support for a cause in the presence of less tolerant people. Still, Matthews remained loyal to his own principles.

R. P. Matthews' enlistment with a Home Guard company and later Phelps Missouri Infantry Regiment provide details about Civil War service in southwest Missouri that are difficult to find anywhere else. Readers from middle school-age to adult will find this work fascinating.

The Brothers' War: Civil War Voices in Verse
by J. Patrick Lewis

Lewis' poignant poetry is paired with photographs by Civil War photographers and provides readers with vivid insight into the brutality that is war.

With a doctorate in economics and a background as a college professor, J. Patrick Lewis met "Sister Poetry" late in life and "fell in love with words all over again." Despite this late start, he has authored more than 65 books for children and young adults, several of which have received awards.

Mr. Lincoln's Drummer
by G. Clifton Wisler

Described as "scrupulously researched and overflowing with evocative detail," this is the tale of 11-year-old Willie Johnston, the only boy to hold onto his drum during the retreat from the brutal battle at Savage's Station, Va. Willie played for the president when he visited the troops and became the youngest recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The Civil War held a special fascination for Texas author G. Clifton Wisler, who wrote several highly praised novels with the War Between the States as the backdrop. Wisler's young characters often exhibit courage as they face war, strife and hardship in a quickly changing world.

Days of Jubilee
by Patricia and Fred McKissack

President Lincoln's famous 1862 proclamation was one of the most important events in American history, but there was not one single day when all the slaves were freed. Any time slaves were emancipated, it was their Jubilee. Using slave narratives as primary sources, the McKissacks recount events before and after the Civil War that led to emancipation.

St. Louis authors Patricia C. and Fredrick L. McKissack have written more than 100 books about the African-American experience, several of which have won awards and critical acclaim. Days of Jubilee was a 2003 Coretta Scott King Honor Book.

Walt Whitman: Words for America
by Barbara Kerley

For three years during the Civil War, Walt Whitman visited the hospitals in Washington, D.C. He wrote letters home for soldiers, fed those too weak to eat, kept quiet vigil so that young men would not have to die. Walt Whitman: Words for America is a biography of the American poet whose compassion led him to nurse soldiers during the Civil War, to give voice to the nation's grief at Lincoln's assassination, and to capture the true American spirit in verse.

Barbara Kerley taught math and science in Nepal as a Peace Corps worker, was crowned the Cinnamon Roll queen at a Seattle bakery, and taught English in Guam. Her books have won many awards; Walt Whitman: Words for American was a Sibert Honor Book.