A few more off the stack!
Recently finished:
Life and Death in Civil War Prisons, J. Michael Martinez. A well-balanced review of prison camp life during the Civil War, focusing on a Northern prisoner held in Andersonville and a Southern prisoner held in Rock Island.
Andersonville, a novel by MacKinlay Kantor. Unbelievable. Breathtaking in its scope—Kantor's work spreads itself out over the entire U.S. and over years of history, just by delving into a few of the stories that might have been told by Andersonville prisoners, and ties it in beautifully with the experiences of local residents living near Andersonville. It's clearly the tip of the iceberg as far as the stories of the prisoners' lives, both before and during their imprisonment, and the pain felt by those (the ones with consciences) who were in charge of the prison is almost palpable on the page. A true classic.
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