American Civil War Fiction

Waking in the dirt to the smell of smoke, widower Ben Palmer finds his homestead razed, and his daughter gone. Ben is raising his daughter Iris as best he could, scratching a living out of the rocky New Mexico mountain soil. Life is hard – but it just gets a lot harder. Under the lead of the notorious Stitch Jacobs, six desperate men have just fouled relations between the Apache nation and a wealthy land baron. Caught in the crosshairs of their escape, Ben’s daughter is taken hostage as a peace offering to the tyrant who bankrolls the gang. Ben is desperate. Getting his daughter back ...

After the murder of Teller City’s two law enforcers, Rick Walker jumps at the opportunity to be the town’s next sheriff. Shortly after assuming the sheriff role for Teller City, a wave of crimes plague the troubled town. A notorious outlaw by the name of Leopold Lodges has been released from Colorado’s penitentiary for good behavior. But he is far from reformed. Leopold is striking back in order to get his revenge on the law for locking him up. One peaceful night, Leopold and his gang ride through the town to look for trouble before kidnapping Jenny Bridle from her bed. Upon learning ...

Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K’s invitation to work as a medic at a field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority.

"Whirligig is a magnificent novel, epic in scale!"– Gill Thompson, Author of 'The Child on Platform One.' Shire leaves his home and his life in Victorian England for the sake of a childhood promise, a promise that pulls him into the bleeding heart of the American Civil War. Lost in the bloody battlefields of the West, he discovers a second home for his loyalty. Clara believes she has escaped from a predictable future of obligation and privilege, but her new life in the Appalachian Hills of Tennessee is decaying around her. In the mansion of Comrie, long hidden secrets are being slowly ...

“Don’t touch him there! He’s bleeding.” “I know that he’s bleeding! Both of my hands are covered in blood.” “Well, be careful.” “I am being careful, Rose. I don’t want to make it any worse!” “I think he’s waking up.” Ted was convinced that he was dreaming. And when he opened his eyes, he was sure that there were two angels looking down at him. “Hello, mister,” Rose said. “How are you feeling?” “Don’t ask him that, Rose,” the other woman replied. “You can clearly see that he’s been shot.” “I just wanted to make sure, okay, Lilly?” Ted was...

Ambrose Bierce brings to life the heart rendering stories of divided loyalties, splitting families, states, countries, and individuals. He writes of the glory in beginning and savagery in the doing. Here is a moving anti-war series of stories if ever there was one. A must read by all students of American History and Literature, though perhaps best understood by older adults.

Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible, and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the 19th century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history.

She found love in the West but no peace. He found forgiveness but no rest. Now a new adversary threatens their future together: a proud Lakota warrior named Crazy Horse. Southern war widow Annabelle is eager to start a new life in a Montana gold rush town with Union cavalryman Josey Angel. But the infamous gunman has one last debt to repay. Then a band of warriors seizes Annabelle in a bloody raid, placing her at the center of the deadliest Indian war America has ever seen. Her captor, Crazy Horse, seeks to kill the white men who have trespassed on his people’s land, even as he’s ...

The Civil War: 1860 - 1865 examines the people and events involved in the bloody war that pitted the Northern states against those that seceded to form the Confederacy.

Fleeing the pain of losing her twin to human mortality, Maeve Tremayne uses her powers to travel to the past, where she wanders the blood-soaked battlefields and hospitals of the American Civil War, relieving dying young men from their pain with the kiss of death. There, she meets a mortal doctor named Calder Holbrook, who immediately falls under her spell - and she reluctantly falls under his.

John Biles wakes in the back of a strange family’s wagon, and his whole life is in ruin. John’s family is riding their way to El Paso to establish a newspaper. His father is a newspaper man, and the rest of the family works in the print shop. Descended upon by a group of Indians who talk like white men, John’s family wagon is besieged, leaving his parents and sister dead. Wounded, John is found by the Jensen family whose wagon is on its way to a massive piece of land they’ve inherited on the outskirts of Whistle Springs. The property inherited has a natural spring from which the ...

"1865: A New Dawn" As the Civil War rages, love endures... but will it be enough to survive the devastating toll of war? In the year 1861, Bridget O’Reilly’s life in the peaceful town of Watertown, New York, is turned upside down. With the war threatening to tear the country apart, her beloved Edward makes the fateful decision to enlist, leaving Bridget behind with nothing but hope and promises of his return. As the war stretches on and tragedy strikes, Bridget’s world is shattered by the loss of her brother Seamus. Yet, through it all, she clings to the love she shares with Edward, ...

For Clint Beck, a quest to arrest Ruffen is also his chance at redemption. Rustling is a big problem for the God-fearing folks of Perryville in 1870. Not only that, but it’s now escalated with the killing of community pillar Jonas Davidson – a farmer, husband and father of five. The town screams for justice. As Perryville sheriff, Clint sets out to arrest the guilty parties. Almost everyone in the county knows that Clyde Ruffen and his gang are behind the heinous crime but… proving it is another story. Ruffen has spent thirty years learning how to hide his crimes and avoid the law. He...

Harriet Ann Jacob's autobiography documents her life as a slave and how she attained freedom for herself and her children. Harrowing in its descriptions of sexual abuse, Jacob's slave narrative is notable for the appeal it made to abolitionist women to open their eyes to the realities of slavery. Deemed too shocking for reading audiences at the time, the book was shelved before it was published in 1861 near the start of the Civil War.

A horse wrangler’s quest for justice ignites as he confronts the outlaw who shattered his peace, with the enigmatic Evelyn by his side. Shane Williams is a seasoned horse wrangler in his town of Greenville. Five years ago, an outlaw by the name of Joe Blackwood took the lives of Shane’s family. Scarred by the life altering event, Shane has moved forward and found solace in the quiet routines of his wrangling career. However, this peace does not last when Blackwood resurfaces in a nearby town and causes havoc by killing innocent townsfolk. Shane’s wounds are ripped open anew and he ...

Evan Henson, a Union battle-tested veteran of the Civil War, dismounted. He stood six-one and paused. “I am so sorry, Miss McLee. Your ma was one of the finest women the Good Lord ever put on this earth. You say it was Kreb who killed her, huh?” “Sure nuff,” Dory McLee confirmed. Evan exhaled deeply and turned around slowly shaking his head. “You know Alton Kreb. He has the most money of anyone in this territory and he ain’t about ready to go to the hoosegow on his own.” “That’s just too doggone bad,” Dory fired back. “He broke the law and now he’s gotta pay for it....

Susie King Taylor, born a slave in 1848, would learn to read at secret schools and go on to teach countless others to read and write. Follow the course of the Civil War in her own words as she remembers her work as a nurse and teacher with an Army troop of African-American soldiers.

After an attempted theft of one of his ranch’s horses, Levi Clay finds himself with blood on his hands and renewed questions about his father’s mysterious death… As he searches for answers in the neighboring town of Masonville, he uncovers a world that’s been warped to serve a brutal gang of outlaws led by one man – Pete Ramsey. Murder. Raids. Corruption. Pete has done it all. But nobody dares to point out the injustices that they have suffered. Speaking up only puts their lives in danger, because… The sheriff and his deputies are on Ramsey’s payroll. As he probes deeper into ...

From the critically acclaimed author of Bloodroot, a gripping, wondrously evocative novel of a family in turmoil, set against the backdrop of real-life historical event—the story of three days in the summer of 1936, as a government-built dam is about to flood an Appalachian town, and a little girl goes missing.

Brutalized by a man she can never love, Megan Connors flees her Virginia home to start a new life as a schoolteacher on a South Carolina ranch. Steeped in the serenity of her new surroundings, Megan feels her dreams of a good life are finally coming true. Indeed, life would be perfect if not for her infuriatingly rude employer, the wealthy ranch owner Charles Donavan. Unable to deny her growing attraction to Charles, Megan soon discovers the chilling secret behind his grim existence. Determined to help Charles free himself from the ghosts of his past, Megan soon finds herself a target for ...