Suggested Reading From the Camp
We, the General Joe Wheeler Camp, wanted to take time and suggest some reading material. We believe in order to teach and present the true history of our ancestors we must first read and gain knowledge. The history books in our schools do not teach the true history along with expressing the views of the Southen people along with what really happened during the War Between The States. These are some of our favorites that are very informative. We will continue to update the list as books are brought before the camp so please continue to check back.
The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo
A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend.
Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day.
You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.
Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend.
Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day.
You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.
Christ in the Camp by J. William Jones
This book leads you through the Great Spiritual Revival in the Confederate Army during the War Between the States. It looks into the lives of the army chaplains, soldiers, and generals during their spiritual journey to know Christ.
War Crimes Against Southern CIVILIANS by Walter Brian Cisco
This is the untold story of the Union's "hard war" against the people of the Confederacy. Styled the "Black Flag" campaign, it was agreed to by Lincoln in a council with his generals in 1864. Cisco reveals the shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering of personal property, and even murder of civilians. Carefully researched largely from primary sources, this examination also gives full attention to the suffering of Black victims of Federal brutality.
When in the Course of Human Events :
Arguing the Cause for Southern Secession by Charles Adams
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
With these words, thirteen of the British colonies in North America unanimously declared independence from British rule. Eighty-five years later, adhering to principles articulated by their revolutionary forebears, the 11 Confederate States of America seceded from the United States, plunging the country into the bloodiest war of its history. Until the publication of this highly original book, most attempts to explain the origins of the American Civil War relied heavily on regional sympathies and mythology—that the South abandoned the Union to maintain slavery while President Lincoln's primary goal was to preserve the nation. Prominent scholar Charles Adams challenges this traditional wisdom.
Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, Adams makes a powerful and convincing case that the Southern states were legitimately exercising their political rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Although conventional histories have taught generations of Americans that this was a war fought for lofty moral principles, Adams' eloquent history transcends simple Southern partisanship to show how the Civil War was primarily a battle over competing commercial interests, opposing interpretations of constitutional rights, and what English novelist Charles Dickens described as "a fiscal quarrel."
With these words, thirteen of the British colonies in North America unanimously declared independence from British rule. Eighty-five years later, adhering to principles articulated by their revolutionary forebears, the 11 Confederate States of America seceded from the United States, plunging the country into the bloodiest war of its history. Until the publication of this highly original book, most attempts to explain the origins of the American Civil War relied heavily on regional sympathies and mythology—that the South abandoned the Union to maintain slavery while President Lincoln's primary goal was to preserve the nation. Prominent scholar Charles Adams challenges this traditional wisdom.
Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, Adams makes a powerful and convincing case that the Southern states were legitimately exercising their political rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Although conventional histories have taught generations of Americans that this was a war fought for lofty moral principles, Adams' eloquent history transcends simple Southern partisanship to show how the Civil War was primarily a battle over competing commercial interests, opposing interpretations of constitutional rights, and what English novelist Charles Dickens described as "a fiscal quarrel."
The South Was Right by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy
Much of War Between the States history is untrue because like most history, it is written by the victor. The story we hear is that hundreds of thousands of Southern men went to war over an issue that only affected six percent of the population. Read this book and learn the truth: there was no shining Northern force fighting a moral battle for the sake of ending slavery; there was no oppressive Southern force fighting to preserve it; and after the South declared its independence, the Union ruthlessly invaded, leaving Southerners no choice but to defend themselves.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War by Crocker, H.W. III
In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, Crocker profiles eminent–and colorful–military generals including the noble Lee, the controversial Sherman, the indefatigable Grant, the legendary Stonewall Jackson, and the notorious Nathan Bedford Forrest. He also includes thought-provoking chapters such as “The Civil War in Sixteen Battles You Should Know” and the most devastatingly politically incorrect chapter of all, “What If the South Had Won?”
Along the way, he reveals a huge number of little-known truths, including why Robert E. Lee had a higher regard for African Americans than Lincoln did; how, if there had been no Civil War, the South would have abolished slavery peaceably (as every other country in the Western Hemisphere did in the nineteenth century); and how the Confederate States of America might have helped the Allies win World War I sooner.
Recap of book from Conservative Book Club site
In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, Crocker profiles eminent–and colorful–military generals including the noble Lee, the controversial Sherman, the indefatigable Grant, the legendary Stonewall Jackson, and the notorious Nathan Bedford Forrest. He also includes thought-provoking chapters such as “The Civil War in Sixteen Battles You Should Know” and the most devastatingly politically incorrect chapter of all, “What If the South Had Won?”
Along the way, he reveals a huge number of little-known truths, including why Robert E. Lee had a higher regard for African Americans than Lincoln did; how, if there had been no Civil War, the South would have abolished slavery peaceably (as every other country in the Western Hemisphere did in the nineteenth century); and how the Confederate States of America might have helped the Allies win World War I sooner.
Recap of book from Conservative Book Club site
Heroines of Dixie
by Katharine M. Jones
Through the use of diaries and letters, this book tells what ordinary women in Confederate States were doing at home during the Civil War. There is great detail about what rural farm women were doing as well as plantation dwellers.
Lincoln Takes Command
by: John Shipley Tilley
Out of print for years, this revealing account of how the war was started is now in paperback with an all new look. An Alabama attorney, Tilley gives a day by day explanation of those who began the war & the way they began it; it sheds a new light on why the states separated; & how Ft. Sumter happened.
When the Yankees: Come Former South Carolina Slaves Remember Sherman's Invasion
By: Paul C. Graham
MANY AMERICANS BELIEVE that the coming of the blue soldiers of the North, emissaries of emancipation, was a joyful event for African Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth.
How do we know this?
Because we have their recorded accounts.
Ending slavery, contrary to self-congratulatory American myth, was not a righteous crusade. It was a byproduct of a brutal war of conquest and invasion—a total war against civilians in which black Southerners suffered as much if not more than whites. The devastation of the people’s resources in large areas of the South left African Americans as well as Southern whites suffering and sometimes starving. For many, it was an experience of fear, disruption of life, and cruel uncertainty about their future, to which the liberators had given no thought.
The material gathered by Paul C. Graham makes this clear. Of late, Americans have had a taste for history by theory: the War Between the States was “about” slavery. A better understanding comes from seeing what the people who were there have to say about it. Such an approach to history as human experience can be both informative and enlightening.
This book expands and replaces Graham’s previous version of When the Yankees Come and includes selections from both the North Carolina and South Carolina WPA Slave Narratives.
How do we know this?
Because we have their recorded accounts.
Ending slavery, contrary to self-congratulatory American myth, was not a righteous crusade. It was a byproduct of a brutal war of conquest and invasion—a total war against civilians in which black Southerners suffered as much if not more than whites. The devastation of the people’s resources in large areas of the South left African Americans as well as Southern whites suffering and sometimes starving. For many, it was an experience of fear, disruption of life, and cruel uncertainty about their future, to which the liberators had given no thought.
The material gathered by Paul C. Graham makes this clear. Of late, Americans have had a taste for history by theory: the War Between the States was “about” slavery. A better understanding comes from seeing what the people who were there have to say about it. Such an approach to history as human experience can be both informative and enlightening.
This book expands and replaces Graham’s previous version of When the Yankees Come and includes selections from both the North Carolina and South Carolina WPA Slave Narratives.
Rumbling of the Chariot Wheels
By : I. Jenkins Mikell
A book from 1923 reprinted in 1975. A story of a young boy on a southern plantation in South Carolina during the time of the War Between the States and during its aftermath.
To Live and Die in Dixie: The Struggle Continues...
Presented by: R. Michael Givens and the Sons of Confederate Veterans
Edited by: Frank B. Powell III
To Live and Die in Dixie was envisioned as a companion to I'll Take My Stand, in the hopes the two volumes may rest side-by-side (between readings) on an accessible shelf for as long as the job may take. The job being: the total vindication of the Southern and Confederate Cause. To Live and Die in Dixie was not penned by the Agrarians, but by some of today's best philosophers and historians. Herein, you will find twenty-seven essays which are designed to supply the weapons needed to take on the intellectually challenged and misinformed purveyors of modern historical imbecility. Intelligence is a weapon of self-defense. If you don't know your own history then you will be helpless and ignorant before someone who merely claims to know your history!