Civil War Books I'm Reading Now

Well, I need to send in my book reports for my Civil War class but there are two books I want to finish reading first. (The links will take you to their listings on Amazon.)

1. Civil War Memoirs of Two Rebel Sisters edited by William D. Wintz, a short book compiled of Civil War-era letters, mostly by the Hansford sisters who grew up in the Kanawha Valley. One married a doctor from Newtown, Virginia and moved there before the war. As a resident along the Valley Pike south of Winchester, she tells of the armies moving by, sometimes visiting her home.
   


2. Conversations with Shelby Foote by William Carter and others.
   

Foote, a well-known southern writer who died in 2005, shares many interesting opinions on writing, the south, and the American Civil War. In one interview, Dick Cavett asked " What would it have taken for the war to go the other way, for the South to win?" Foote said:

It would have taken more than the South ever had. The North fought that war with one hand, the other hand behind its back. If circumstances had called for it, the North simply would have brought that other hand out... One thing you have to realize is how much the North did in addition to fight the war. Vassar, M.I.T. -- I can't remember the long list of universities and colleges that were established during the war. The Homestead Act was in full blast. The West was settled during the war. The North by no means exerted its last ounce of energy and the South very nearly did. There was no way. I think anything the South could have done on its own would never have won the war. the once chance would have been intervention by England or France and there was no chance for that.