Books
New / Best Sellers / Most Recommended
Sacrifice All For The Union: The story of Captain John Valley Young personifies the body of rugged Union Army volunteers from West Virginia during the Civil War: highly resilient, stubbornly independent, and fiercely patriotic. Using Captain Young’s wartime letters to his wife, Paulina Franklin Young, and his daughters, Sarah and Emily Young, along with his diary and numerous other original soldier accounts, this book reveals the experiences of a Union soldier and his family who were truly willing to “Sacrifice All for the Union.”
Seceding from Secession: “West Virginia was the child of the storm,” concluded early Mountaineer historian and Civil War veteran, Maj. Theodore F. Lang. The northwestern third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form the Union’s 35th state. In Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, authors Eric J. Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus, and Penny L. Barrick chronicle those events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military, and political factors that converged to bring about the birth of the West Virginia.
The Battle of Hurricane Bridge, March 28, 1863
by Philip Hatfield, PhD
The Battle at Hurricane Bridge is an often overlooked Civil War action occurring at the small and otherwise quiet western Virginia village. For five hours behind the limited protection of an unfinished earthen fort, the green Union troops of the 13th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry under the command of Captain James Johnson, fought to hold off the hardened Confederate veterans of the 8th and 16th Virginia Cavalry commanded by Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins.
Ultimately, the March 28, 1863, battle at Hurricane Bridge directly contributed to the Union army maintaining control of the James River & Kanawha Turnpike, a key supply line, and enabled Federal control of the Kanawha Valley for the remainder of the war.
The Seventh West Virginia Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War’s Most Divided State
by David W. Mellott and Dr. Mark A. Snell
My Reminiscences of the Civil War with the Stonewall Brigade and the Immortal 600
by Captain Alfred Mallory Edgar, 27th Virginia Infantry CSA
General Topics
The Civil War in West Virginia: A Pictorial History, by Stan Cohen
Pictorial Guide to West Virginia’s Civil War Sites, by Stan Cohen
Images of the Civil War in West Virginia, by Terry Lowry and Stan Cohen
West Virginia in the Civil War (Images of America), by Richard A. Wolfe
West Virginia and the Civil War, by Dr. Mark A. Snell
The War Came by Train: The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad During the Civil War, by Daniel Carroll Toomey
Battles / Campaigns
The First Campaign: A Guide to Civil War in the Mountains of West Virginia, 1861, Three One-Day Driving Tours, by W. Hunter Lesser
The Battle of White Sulphur Springs, by Eric J. Wittenberg
September Blood: The Battle of Carnifex Ferry, by Terry Lowry
Campaign in Western Virginia, by George B. McClellan
Holding the Line: The Battle of Allegheny Mountain, by Joe Geiger
The Jones-Imboden Raid, by Darrell L. Collins
General William Averell’s Salem Raid, by Darrell L. Collins
The Coal River Valley in the Civil War, by Michael B. Graham
Last Sleep: The Battle of Droop Mountain, by Terry Lowry
The Battle of Scary Creek, by Terry Lowry
Unit Histories
History of the 5th West Virginia Cavalry, by Frank S. Reader
History of the 12th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry, by William Hewitt,
Includes: The Story of Andersonville and Florence by James N. Miller
Phantoms of the South Fork: Captain McNeill and His Rangers, by Steve French
Headquarters in the Brush: Blazer’s Independent Union Scouts, by Darl L. Stephenson
Biographies
Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, by James I. Robertson, Jr.
Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, by S.C. Gwynne
Major Thomas Maley Harris, by H.E. Matheny
Brigadier General John D. Imboden, by Spencer C. Tucker
The Other Feud: William Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield in the Civil War, by Dr. Philip Hatfield
Online Reading
A House Divided: Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia by Richard Orr Curry
University of Pittsburgh Press – Digital Editions
The Tarnished Thirty-fifth Star by C. Stuart McGehee
Virginia at War, 1861; edited by William C. Davis and James I. Robertson, Jr.
Virginia Center for Civil War Studies
Loyal West Virginia from 1861-1865 by Theodore F. Lang
The Deutsch Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland, 1895.
New Book Announcements and Reviews
Now available!The Battle of Hurricane Bridge, March 28, 1863by Philip Hatfield, PhDThe Battle at Hurricane Bridge is an often overlooked Civil War action occurring at the small and otherwise quiet western Virginia village. For five hours behind the limited...
New regimental history of 7th West Virginia Infantry
Now Available!The Seventh West Virginia Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War’s Most Divided Stateby David W. Mellott and Dr. Mark A. Snell
New book on Belle Boyd
A new book on Confederate spy Belle Boyd has recently been released. Belle Boyd: The Rebel Spy is the first serious non-fiction account of her life in 34 years. Belle Boyd was from Martinsburg, Virginia (West Virginia) and considered the most notorious and...
Phantoms of the South Fork: Captain McNeill and his Rangers
Phantoms of the South Fork: Captain McNeill and his Rangers, by Steve French Now available from Kent State University Press February 21, 1865 - 3 a.m. - Cumberland, Maryland: A band of approximately 65 horsemen slowly makes its way down Greene Street. Thinking the...
The Battle of Lewisburg, now available
The Battle of Lewisburg, by Richard L. Armstrong, is now available from 35th Star Publishing. The early morning hours of May 23, 1862 brought the horror of war to the residents of the small, mountain town of Lewisburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). A brigade of Union...
Now Available: The Battle of Charleston
The Battle of Charleston, and the 1862 Kanawha Valley Campaign by Terry Lowry The Battle of Charleston (West Virginia), fought September 13, 1862, between the Confederate forces of Gen. William Wing Loring and the Federal command of Col. Joseph Andrew Jackson...
Modern reprint of History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry
35th Star Publishing of Charleston, West Virginia, has released a modern reprint of the History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry. Originally published in 1890 by the Civil War veterans of the regiment, this new modern version includes the entire original text, 58...
New book: On This Day in West Virginia Civil War History
Arcadia Publishing has released a new title, On This Day in West Virginia Civil War History. West Virginia is the only state formed by seceding from a Confederate state. And its connections to the Civil War run deep. One day at a time, award-winning historian Michael...
The Coal River Valley in the Civil War
The History Press publishing company has released a new title, The Coal River Valley in the Civil War by Michael B. Graham. About the book The three rivers that make up the Coal River Valley—Big, Little and Coal—were named by explorer John Peter Salling (or Salley)...
Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era
Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era New biography by the Ohio University Press The wrenching events of the Civil War transformed not only the United States but also the men unexpectedly called on to lead their fellow citizens in this first modern...