A Complete Illustrated History of the Civil War by Henry W. Elson, Professor of History, Ohio University Copyright 1912 By Patriot Publishing Co., Springfiled, Mass About This Version The antiquarian version that is the subject of this review is a high-quality hard-bound book in a large format. It has beautifully decorated and framed pages, excellent quality paper and printing of text and images, most of which are actual photographs. It also includes sixteen full-page color reproductions of famous war paintings. The production and editing are flawless; A current word processing application could not have performed better.researching civil war ancestors

The 16 color prints, 317 photographs, and approximately 260 text pages make up this book.

Comments:

Don't let the title fool you; Despite the fact that it contains hundreds of fascinating photographs, this is not a picture book. The author wrote a comprehensive history of the Civil War that was published almost fifty years after it ended. It had hundreds of actual photographs, compelling text, and style and content.

The author, Henry Elson, had a lot of facts to research and understand. He also lived and wrote in a time when many people, including war veterans from both sides, still thought of the Civil War as part of living history.

This is a complete account of the Civil War, from its beginning to its conclusion and all of its horror. The accompanying photographs add even more vividness to the narrative.

To read this book, you don't need to know anything about the Civil War; The reader will learn about the war's causes and tactics in a way that no other contemporary book can. In dramatic prose, this book tells the story of the Civil War from a unique human perspective as well as a factual, no-nonsense perspective.

Since this book was written more than 86 years ago, most people will notice that the prose, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other aspects of the text are a little different from what we expect today. This is true of many older antiquarian histories). The result is a fascinating and delightful portrayal of 1912, when prose was frequently unabashedly exciting and dramatic. Even though the topic is about the horror and misery of war, you will find yourself laughing at the frequent use of words and phrases that we consider to be excessively dramatic and exaggerated; Despite the fact that it was quite common in that era and added an additional level of enjoyment, it occasionally seems a little silly in our current world.

For instance, just two of the many dramatic expressions found throughout the book are as follows: As I read this, I can almost hear a drum roll as the war approaches the nation.)

For the first time, two powerful American armies were going to fight on the Shiloh battlefield in a battle that would rival the most significant battle in European history. It was unfortunate that the contestants were not bloodthirsty adversaries but rather close friends from the same family.

or another illustration:

Their ranks were flooded with the deadly fire of the cliffside batteries. Nobly the going after sections endured the storm of heavy hail and gravitated toward the stream. Some of the more aggressive players made it to the opposite bank, but they were severely defeated there.

The factual accuracy of this book is not affected by its 1912 publication date. I've read both the modern and this version, and both contain plenty of historical factual information. In fact, I'm confident that contemporary works heavily rely on this book. This book provides more of an insider's perspective on the Civil War than just the cold, hard facts; Stories of honor, chivalry, kindness, humanity, morality, and patriotism balance out the empathetic tales of sacrifice, destruction, death, deprivation, hatred, cruelty, and pain.

I enjoy history a lot; I'm especially keen on American time history; This is one of the best original works of antiquarian American history that I've read, and I'm sure it served as the foundation for many other histories of the Civil War.

Reading this book is an engaging experience. Even though the format is similar to that of a textbook, the historical content is unparalleled. Once you start reading, it is difficult to put down because it reads more like a novel. Even if you are an expert on the Civil War and have read a lot of books about the war, I think reading and studying this book will give you a new perspective on the war. When you finish this book, even if you are not an expert, you will be well on your way to becoming one.

An ideal candidate for a multimedia ebook is this one. The ideal components of a multimedia-enhanced ebook are the subject, the layout, the text, prose, photographs, and all of the additional Civil War resources that are accessible.