Civil Camp

Jennifer Chiaverini's New York Times best-selling Elm Creek Quilt novels, with their irresistible blend of storytelling magic and quilting lore, have captured the hearts of countless fans. In this moving novel about morality, freedom, and the power of human courage, Chiaverini whisks listeners back to antebellum America.

Why do some Americans find pleasure in sleeping outside, particularly when so many others, past and present, have had to do so for reasons other than recreation? Never only a vacation choice, camping has been something people do out of dire necessity and as a tactic of political protest. Yet the dominant interpretation of camping as a modern recreational ideal has obscured the connections to these other roles. Camping Grounds rediscovers unexpected and interwoven histories of sleeping outside.

Notorious, a hell on earth, a cesspool, a death camp, and infamous have all been used by prisoners and critics to describe Andersonville Prison, constructed to house Union prisoners of war in 1864, and all descriptions apply.

They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin's haunting account of the women of Camp Etna - an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues - even thrives - to this very day.

Texas is occupied by the military. The Texas Congress is dead or in prison. Governor Mike Ryan is on the run and President Pamela Kershaw wants him dead. All major cities in Texas are occupied by the hated Department of Human Relations police. They round up thousands of political prisoners and their families and throw them into internment camps. In Houston, the mayor and police chief repel attempts by the DHR police to occupy their city by blowing up bridges and freeway overpasses. Then the DHR police regroup and fly into the airports. The people of Houston repel them again until the ...

Life in the rugged Appalachian Mountains of the 1860s was brutal but life in those treacherous hills had never been easy. A tough life breeds hardy people and the mountain people were as unforgiving and fierce as the mountains themselves. The old ways ran strong in their blood and hatred ran bone deep. Feuds were a part of life. The Robertson clan was a small but proud family. When a cherished member was needlessly shot down the grief-stricken Robertsons went to war against the family of her killers. The feud dragged on for years but their enemies were far too numerous. Fourteen year old ...

Within this action-packed tale of battles, bravery, and the mercies of a gracious God, pastor J. William Jones presents the remarkable true story of the glorious revivals that swept the Confederate camps during the War Between the States. In the midst of one of the darkest hours of American history, the marvelous Light of God’s glory shone brilliantly forth as the Lord drew a people to Himself through the preaching of His wondrous Gospel. A first-hand witness of the great revival of 1861-1865, Jones captures in vivid and inspiring detail the stirring picture of God’s work among the ...

Long called by some the “Andersonville of the North”, the prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, is remembered as the most notorious of all Union-run POW camps. It existed for only a year - from the summer of 1864 to July 1865 - but in that time, and for long after, it became darkly emblematic of man’s inhumanity to man. Confederate prisoners called it “Hellmira”. Derek Maxfield contextualizes the rise of prison camps during the Civil War, explores the failed exchange of prisoners, and tells the tale of the creation and evolution of the prison camp in Elmira.

It is impossible to conduct a war without atrocities occurring, primarily because war itself is an atrocity, but when those who win the war write the histories, as they almost always do, they typically ignore or seek to explain away their own malevolent acts while exaggerating those of their defeated enemy. This goes a long way in explaining why the name Andersonville immediately conjures up visions of horrific suffering for many Americans while the name Camp Douglas means almost nothing to those who aren’t intimately familiar with the Civil War.

Joe Henry’s Journey, by Marcia Melton, a historical novel for young readers, follows eleven-year-old Joe Henry Grummond and his Pa on an often perilous journey to find gold. When they board a steamboat to go up the “Big Muddy” Missouri River to Fort Benton, Montana, in 1862, they hope to escape the desperation of the Civil War in their home state of Kentucky and make money in the gold fields of Montana to take back to the family they leave behind. Little does Joe Henry know that this river trip will lead him to untamed wild places where ambush, robberies, claim jumpers, lawless towns,...