Books about the Civil War are legion. When I was young, Bruce Catton published a 3 volume history of the Army of the Potomac which is classic. James McPherson has a series of fine studies of various aspects of the war and an excellent recent bio of Lincoln. Douglas Freeman has a multi-volume bio of Lee which is well regarded (I cant say more, having never read it.) There are numerous bios of many other Civil War figures including an excellent bio of Sherman (no, he was not actually crazy, but he was damned peculiar; inter alia his marriage was years delayed because he wouldn't agree even to just visit Ohio where he was raised -- his wife spent her confinements there w/ her parents) by Lee Kennett and Cooper's fine recent bio of Jefferson Davis. It shows the tragedy of a fine man whose life was doomed by his advocacy of the atrocity of slavery. It also demolishes the years of false claims that the War was about anything other than slavery.

There are literally scores of Grant bios. (And no, he was not a failure as a pre-war businessman. He was a terrible judge of character who ruined himself financally by loaning thousands of dollars to "friends" who never paid it back. Of course his deficiency in this respect was again punished by the failure of his presidency caused by unwise trust in unworthy people.) I am very partial to Geoffrey Parrott's bio, as I am to all of his work.

For those interested in non-military aspects of the war, Jeff Hummel's work called something like EMANCIPATING SLAVES, ENSLAVING FREE MEN is well written and esoecially interesting.

But I have digressed from what I want to discuss which is a new book, AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, by the world-class British military writer John Keegan,  If you want a critical strategic and tactical analysis of the war, this is it! It is a fine companion to Catton's and MacPherson'd works.