Secret Lives of the Civil War cover art

Secret Lives of the Civil War

What Your Teachers Never Told you About the War Between the States

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Secret Lives of the Civil War

By: Cormac O'Brien
Narrated by: Allen O'Reilly
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About this listen

Legendary Heroes of U.S. History - As You’ve Never Seen Them Before!

Secret Lives of the Civil War features irreverent and uncensored profiles of men and women from the Union and the Confederacy - complete with hundreds of little-known and downright bizarre facts.

You’ll discover that:

  • Mary Todd Lincoln claimed to receive valuable military strategies from ghosts in the spirit world.
  • Jefferson Davis once imported camels for soldiers stationed in the American southwest.
  • Ulysses S. Grant spent much of the Vicksburg campaign on a horse named “Kangaroo.”
  • James Longstreet fought the Battle of Antietam wearing carpet slippers.
  • William T. Sherman was the victim of two shipwrecks on the same day.
  • Harriet Tubman experienced frequent and bizarre hallucinations.
  • Stonewall Jackson was a notorious hypochondriac (he always sat up straight, fearing that slouching would compress his vital organs).

With chapters on everyone from William Quantrill (a guerilla leader whose skull later ended up in the basement of a fraternity house) to Rose O’Neal Greenhow (perhaps the South’s most glamorous spy), Secret Lives of the Civil War features a mix of famous faces and unsung heroes. American history was never this much fun in school!

©2007 Cormac O'Brien (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
American Civil War Comedy & Humour Historical Military War Civil War American History Witty

Editorial reviews

The Secret Lives series from Quirk Books delves into the nooks and crannies of history that most books miss. The results are sometimes surprising, sometimes comical, and always entertaining. Cormac O'Brien, who also penned Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents and Secret Lives of the First Ladies, has a gift for snark and the telling detail. In Civil War he reveals little-known, amusing facts about the War Between the States without belittling the gravity of the war's many battles and their gruesome death toll. Allen O'Reilly performs these biographical details - with subjects divided into Union and Confederate - with depth, intensity, and a mature voice that forms the perfect vehicle for these revealing historical facts.

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