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Rating: 
Summary: Faith in Gods and Generals
Review: Having published a review of the film "Gods and Generals," I found this book an interesting companion to it. This beautifully illustrated anthology provides insights into individuals caught up on both sides of the Civil War and how their faith guided them. The excellent Forword by Ron Maxwell is a must read. It makes a great gift book.
Rating:
Summary: Faith in Gods and Generals
Review: Having published a review of the film "Gods and Generals," I found this book an interesting companion to it. This beautifully illustrated anthology provides insights into individuals caught up on both sides of the Civil War and how their faith guided them. The excellent Forword by Ron Maxwell is a must read. It makes a great gift book.
Rating:
Summary: excellent addition to any historical, biographical library
Review: If you know anything about the Civil War . . .or want to learn anything about the Civil War. . .leave this miserable book on the shelf--or better yet throw it on the garbage pile. It is rife with errors that even individuals with a casual interest in the Civil War can find. (My personal favorite is the authors/publishers selecting a photograph of Winfield Scott and labeling it Winfield Scott Hancock. If you don't know the difference, you shouldn't be writing, editing OR publishing books on the Civil War.)This is amateur hour at its best. Go buy books authored by professional Civil War historians. This is excrement.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview of Christian faith in the Civil War
Review: Ted Baehr and Susan Wales have compiled this book that gives biographical sketches of just about every character in Ron Maxwell's film Gods and Generals. This book is unique in that it gives attention to how the Christian faith of these people influenced their lives, particularly during the war. It is written with brevity and is full of quotes from their letters. This book is important because a person's faith will influence what he does in life, to varying degrees. That is why I feel it is important to study this aspect of their character and to this end I am particularly grateful to Ted Baehr and Susan Wales for putting this book together. It will also serve as an introduction to many of these characters for the reader who may be studying these people for the first time. Each piece in this book has footnotes that will guide the reader to other sources that they can read if they would like to study a person or topic further. Ron Maxwell provides a very insightful foreward to this book in which he tells of his conviction to portray history accurately. The book has many nice photos from the film as well as photos and drawings from the Civil War era. 18 people contributed to this book, historian Gabor Boritt among them. Talk-show host and columnist Les Kinsolving contributed a piece on William Barksdale, to whom he is related. He also plays William Barksdale in Gods and Generals and Gettysburg. My favorite chapter is the one on Stonewall Jackson and his wife Anna. It is full of lengthy quotes from their letters to each other. The back of the book has an appendix that lists the cast of the film. It also has a note about each of the contributors to this book. By all means, get this book and keep it handy on your coffeetable. And get the Gods and Generals DVD to go with it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview of Christian faith in the Civil War
Review: Ted Baehr and Susan Wales have compiled this book that gives biographical sketches of just about every character in Ron Maxwell's film Gods and Generals. This book is unique in that it gives attention to how the Christian faith of these people influenced their lives, particularly during the war. It is written with brevity and is full of quotes from their letters. This book is important because a person's faith will influence what he does in life, to varying degrees. That is why I feel it is important to study this aspect of their character and to this end I am particularly grateful to Ted Baehr and Susan Wales for putting this book together. It will also serve as an introduction to many of these characters for the reader who may be studying these people for the first time. Each piece in this book has footnotes that will guide the reader to other sources that they can read if they would like to study a person or topic further. Ron Maxwell provides a very insightful foreward to this book in which he tells of his conviction to portray history accurately. The book has many nice photos from the film as well as photos and drawings from the Civil War era. 18 people contributed to this book, historian Gabor Boritt among them. Talk-show host and columnist Les Kinsolving contributed a piece on William Barksdale, to whom he is related. He also plays William Barksdale in Gods and Generals and Gettysburg. My favorite chapter is the one on Stonewall Jackson and his wife Anna. It is full of lengthy quotes from their letters to each other. The back of the book has an appendix that lists the cast of the film. It also has a note about each of the contributors to this book. By all means, get this book and keep it handy on your coffeetable. And get the Gods and Generals DVD to go with it.
Rating:
Summary: Some fascinating reading!
Review: This book was written to be a companion of the 2003 movie, Gods and Generals. Covering many of the historical figures from that movie, the book tells about them, and particularly about their faith in God, and how that affected what they did. Filled with many great pictures and illustration, this book makes for some fascinating reading! I must admit that I really enjoyed this book. The authors' contention that religious faith is usually given short shrift in most history book is spot on, and that does go along way to making this book practically unique! But, I must say that more is covered in this book than religious subjects; for example, one of my favorite stories told in the book is the story entitled "Grandmother's Quilt," which tells the story of a quilt and the love of two people. Overall, I found this to be a great book! I highly enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it to you.
Rating: 
Summary: The bloody war that tested the Christian faith without mercy
Review: This companion volume to the powerful Civil War movie "Gods and Generals" focuses on the backbone theme of the whole epic: the religious faith of commanders like Stonewall Jackson and the rest of the hundreds of thousands of combatants on both sides that kept them going through the endless horrors of the war, for years on end. This volume written in short sections by different authors is a good read on many facets of the Civil War, some known and some not, adorned with many good photographs from that era. Here are just a few of the things I'm glad I've learned by reading this wonderful book: 1) Most Confederate soldiers did not own any slaves.
2) Some believed that heavy whisky drinking was one of the reasons why the South lost the war.
3) Between North and South, about 350,000 soldiers were "converted to Christ" during the war. The horrors of the war left no where to turn to but the Faith.
4) President Lincoln, although he was a very pious man, was never baptised and was the only U.S. President who never joined a church.
5) Many Civil War generals strictly observed the Sabbath and planned their attacks and campaigns around Sabbath.
6) During the "Great Revival" movement among the Confederate forces that reached its peak during the fall of 1863 and winter of 1864, sometimes the troops prayed continuously for 24 hours.
7) There were many Jewish officers fighting for the South. An handsome volume that re-creates the religious electricity and adrenaline rush of those terrible years successfully. Recommended for all buffs of American history.
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