“Strange and Obscure Stories of the Civil War” by Tim Rowland. A Short Review

 

All told “Strange and Obscure Stories of the Civil War” by Tim Rowland was a solid read. The tales and accounts that sit between the covers are those incidents that don’t often get looked at. Some are humorous, others are peculiar. To read of Confederate Captain Tod Carter leading a battle charge against his own family home, being shot a few yards from the front door, and dying in his own house is attention-getting and heartbreaking. The fascinating episode of James Andrews and his Union team sneaking into Confederate territory, stealing a train, and creating all-day mayhem that turns into an 87-mile 7-hour race with some determined Confederates chasing them, and the story becomes a thrilling page-turner. It is packed with these kinds of episodes.

As I was reading the book I told a friend of mine, “This book puts a deeply human side to the Civil War that is really believable.” The doldrums that afflicted soldiers of both sides between clashes, the death toll by disease, the humor, the stupidity, and the good-old-boy system that stacked the leadership of both sides with incompetents, all of these show up and give color to the Civil War. For Civil War buffs and newbies, this is a work worth reading. I highly recommend it.