Memoranda During the War

Rating:
Summary: Superb additional material for Civil War Introduction
Review: I read this book while also reading "Don't Know Much About the Civil War" and Lincoln's letters and speeches. What a wonderful view into the century that gave rise to this great one. If you are planning to cover the civil war, or even the nineteenth century in America, this would be a central piece to help modern readers understand that time. Whitman's prose style is very modern.

Rating:
Summary: Like a camera into civil war hospitals and camps.
Review: This collection of notes by Walt Whitman written during a period of time when Whitman was visiting war hospitals and camps is superb.

Whitman gives one a glimpse of the war that is photographic and poetic. Its attention to detail, and sympathetic approach must raise a lump in the throat of even the most hardend reader.

He shows you the places, the times and the players. He lets them speak their stories through his lines. Through sadness he exalts them.

This book should be a required reading for all highschool or college American History classes.