Well I decided it was time to do some book shopping again. My focus was the American Civil War in preparation for my long distance tour of battlefields in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. My first stop was the discount section of Barnes and Noble in Rochester, NY. My timing was good as the store had lots of copies of “The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War” (ISBN: 0760750440) on sale for $19.98. It is an oversized book with 821 maps, 106 engravings and 209 drawings. These cover just about every piece of ground that featured in the conflict.

Another choice was “The Commander’s of the Civil War” (ISBN: 086101510X) which provides information on the military leadership of both armies.

I also collected three books from Terry Gore that had been purchased on-line from Amazon.com:

Battle Tactics of the Civil War (ISBN: 0300084617)
Guide to the Battle of Chickmauga (ISBN: 0700605967)
Chickmauga: A Battlefield Guide (ISBN: 0803298021)

The first book was bought as a primer on tactics. Understanding the way in which the troops fought provides insight into how battles were won and lost. The last two were bought as guides for my planned visit to Chattanooga in late November. I wanted to have detailed guides of the battlefields as a reference for touring each location.