77 Books Like Long, Obstinate, and Bloody

Who was Nathanael Greene? An excellent question, and one that has puzzled Americans since he took command of the southern army in 1780.

He was a man of intense contradictions. A lapsed Quaker from Rhode Island, his claim to fame had been as a staff officer to George Washington. Unused to command, he lost battles but conducted the most successful campaign in the war. How he did it is a tale for the ages, brilliantly brought to light in this book.

Golway covers the campaign’s strategy and battle tactics admirably, but there was much more. There are many legends of Greene. Lord Cornwallis, we are told, said Greene was as dangerous as Washington, and he never felt secure when camped near him.

My favorite story of Greene holds that when he arrived in Salisbury, North Carolina, in early 1781, exhausted and beaten, a local woman took pity on him and… show more.

My favorite part of writing the history of the Southern Campaign is cutting through the legends to find out what really happened. Southerners love stories, and the stories from the southern war have been told and retold, and in the process, legends have blossomed.

A great example is James Williams, a Whig militia leader from the backcountry who acquired the fervor of rebellion early in the war. He led his men heroically through many battles; nevertheless, he has gone down in history as the worst scoundrel of his time.

He was killed leading his regiment at the Battle of Kings Mountain, normally a hero’s death, but his chronicler hinted he was killed by Americans holding grudges. How much of this dishonor did he earn?

Graves delved deeply into the legends of this fascinating and complicated man to determine, once and for all, the real story of Williams.

I can’t get enough of Tarleton. Hated and feared in America, he was a hero to the British, and remains a cherished forebear in the UK and Canada.

I read relentlessly on the debate over Tarleton, which continues to this day, unresolved, in stark black and white terms. This fact is most apparent in the debate over Buford’s Massacre.

On 29 May 1780, Tarleton utterly defeated Abraham Buford’s detachment of several hundred American soldiers at the Waxhaws, on the border between North and South Carolina. The carnage was extreme. Tarleton claimed Buford made serious tactical errors that laid his men open to the British cavalry. The Americans cried foul, insisting Tarleton cut down men surrendering their weapons and asking quarter. Who’s right?

This is another book after my own heart, looking to get through the legends to learn what really took place at the Waxhaws. 

Why do we read history?

It is more than the parade of facts, one after the other in a pedantic trail of austere prose. History should grab you and rivet your attention to a subject so personal and so meaningful you can’t look away. If you agree, this book has it all.

Borick looked in a very unpromising place, the British records of Americans captured in the surrender of Charleston in May 1780, and found gold. The book is the heart-wrenching story of thousands of Americans sentenced to years rotting in dank cellars, or, far worse, on murderous prison ships.

The British didn’t want them, hence the title, part of a plea from Charleston’s commander to the British government. The Americans decided not to swap them for the British soldiers captured at Saratoga. The trade, they decided, would benefit the British at a time the Americans needed a win.

This… show more.

Anyone who wants to learn about the American Revolution in the South should start here.

Buchanan not only weaves a thrilling narrative of the events beginning with the British capture of Charleston and ending at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, he does it in a literary style, perfectly weaving primary accounts with his own insights and observations.

This book changed my life! Not only did it introduce me to events of the Race to the Dan, it convinced me to write my own version of it. Anyone who wants to compliment me as a writer of histories, please compare me to John Buchanan.

It’s been a decade since I wrote my novel that featured as a backdrop the conflict over North Carolina’s western (Overmountain) counties’ attempt to form the controversial State of Franklin, but I remember how helpful Barksdale’s book was in forming my understanding of the era, the place, and the people involved. If I didn’t, the copious highlights and notes I left in my copy of this book would be enough to jog my memory. This book was highly readable and rich in detail.

The vintage fashion descriptions are killer diller with little mini-stories about each dress featured that evoke nostalgia and often melancholy. The mini-stories were sweet, delightful vignettes that reminded me of the way I think of my vintage clothing. They were beautifully written and I loved them all but most noticeably, I loved the story about the wartime mother splashing in puddles with her children. Dora’s character was likable and believable and I rooted for her. The supporting characters were perfectly quirky and delightfully despicable. Plus there is a nice romantic element with a fun love-triangle with wonderful supporting characters.

To understand white supremacy today, it’s vital to understand how it changed from a set of ideas embedded in law as well as society to a fringe belief scorned by right-thinking people. Klansville, USA is set in the Civil Rights era deep inside the Klan in North Carolina, probably the most important state for the Klan at the time. Sociologist David Cunningham explains why the Klan was so strong in North Carolina and why it was weaker in many states where racism was also deeply entrenched. Cunningham shows how ordinary and embedded the Klan was in many parts of North Carolina and also reveals the tough, and incredibly effective, FBI campaign to crush the Klan, which included an array of dirty tricks against various Klan chapters that ultimately devastated many white supremacist organizations.

Wow, reading this book is tragic and illuminating all at once.

I had never heard about the Hamlet Fire, during which twenty-five people died in a chicken-processing plant in North Carolina in 1991, before reading this book.

But the story of this industrial disaster answered so many questions about how deregulation, reduced labor and environmental protections, racism, and a desire for cheap food came together in this disaster—one that sheds light on the broader problems of the modern American food system. 

“Nine robed figures dressed all in white,” begins this haunting story of the Ku Klux Klan arriving in the small town of Bumblebee, North Carolina. The year is 1932 and the town is, of course, segregated. Black and White. A line in the soil―just like the neighborhood street of my childhood in Springfield, Virginia that divided my Korean family from the white family who fought and failed to keep us from moving into our home. The reader will step into eleven-year-old Stella Mills' shoes and feel all her fear and anger over the injustices of her world that highlights voting rights. But young Stella harnesses her anger through words (much the way I did as a child) by creating a fantasy newspaper column called Stella Star’s Sentinel. Why didn’t I think of that? I only had my blue diary with a gold clasp. In Stella’s ‘newspaper’ she expresses how… show more.