I recently picked up three or four books on the Civil War and this one was definitely on that I simply could not put down once I began reading it.

What a great read on the aftermath of Gettysburg once the troops moved out and left the community to contend with the wounded, the dead soldiers, dead animals,tc.

People often think about the battle itself, but the aftermath affected the town and the area for a long long time. I wonder if any other major battle sites such as Atlanta have had any books written about after the battle

Along those same lines, Marc, what about after the war itself ended?  What passed for reconstruction has been pretty much ignored.  Even those with an axe to grind have been surprisingly quiet.

Curtis,

Good point...I myself have never really studied that part of our history, but I think maybe it is time I do. Any good books to recommend?

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Marc wrote : Curtis, Good point...I myself have never really studied that part of our history, but I think maybe it is time I do. Any good books to recommend?

A book I have in my library that I haven't read since college but probably should read again is: A Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner

Marc, I don’t have any at this time that covers the whole reconstruction period.  There was a book entitled An Angry Scar, by Hodding Carter, that was right good.  Hodding Carter is quite a character himself,  He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for wrIting, from of all places, Greenville, MS.  An Angry Scar was on one of those lower shelves that storm surge gobbled up when Miss Katrina paid us a visit.  Making it a worse loss is that copy was autographed by Hodding Carter.  Perhaps the book that Greg mentioned is a good one.  All of the rest of the reconstruction books I have(had) are sorta like some of the books on the war that concentrate on a single battle, unit, or some other single entity.  Saying that another way, most of them are regional in nature and narrow in scope.  The latest is a book about the election of 1875.  That is the election that supposedly ended reconstruction.  It is a relatively new book (2006) by Nicholas Lemann called Redemption:  The Last Battle of the Civil War.  I’m going through Redemption for the second time now.  In spite of its gruesomeness, it’s a good one.  But, it is not for the fainthearted.  Lemann does not cut anyone any slack, the southerners or the reconstructionists.  He  makes no excuses and simply writes as things happened.  My great grandfather was involved in some manner.  It has been a hush, hush topic in our family since I was a child.  One of the little pieces of property (40 acres) I have my grandfather gave me.  Years ago he showed me a tree that had the head of a double bit axe embedded in it that was located on this land.  The tree had all but covered that axe.  The handle was gone.  He told me that axe marked the spot where a lot of killings took place in ‘75.  He wasn’t talking about 1975.  That tree and, of course the axe, are long gone...as well as the memories of what happened there.  That type of thing occured and reoccured with appalling frequency prior to the 1875 election.  That election was referred to as the Redemption Election.