Confederate Truth

The Top 10 Best-Selling Civil War Books of 2025

Circana — the book industry’s leading sales tracking firm — has released its rankings for the top-selling Civil War titles of 2025, measured by actual copies sold through mid-October. Here’s how they stacked up:

#1 — Lincoln’s Lady Spymaster · Gerri Willis
#2 — Midnight on the Potomac · Scott Ellsworth
#3 — Somewhere Toward Freedom · Bennett Parten
#4 — 1861: The Lost Peace · Jay Winik
#5 — Lincoln’s Peace · Michael Vorenberg
#6 — Righteous Strife · Richard Carwardine
#7 — A Campaign of Giants: Petersburg, Vol. II · A. Wilson Greene
#8 — Fear No Pharaoh · Richard Kreitner
#9 — The Rialto in Richmond · Joseph P. Farrell
#10 — The Weather Gods Curse the Gettysburg Campaign · Harding & Nese

Which of these have you read — and which is at the top of your list? Drop your answer in the comments.

And here’s the bigger question: Do the best-selling books always reflect the best books? Or does the Civil War community tend to follow mainstream tastes over serious scholarship? Let us know what you think.

An abolitionist senator from Ohio, Ben Wade is a staunch critic of slavery and supports the Civil War's Union cause. Wade co-sponsors the Wade-Davis Bill, outlining strict terms for Reconstruction.

I don't understand why these people are so scared of facts. I said Jefferson Davis started the war and Lincoln and Grant said slavery was the cause of the war and he responded with this and immediately blocked me. Everything I said was fact and everything he said was wrong. He also claims to be a Historian on his profile.

Typical lost cause garbage. One meme about the Emancipation Proclamation, two about Lincoln's racism, one about his speech on the war with Mexico and one literally about slavery, but leaving out the part the says Lincoln wished all people could be free (gee why leave that part out?) and then completely ignoring every thing else he did and said against slavery.

"The CSA Constitution only made 8 changes from the US Constitution" fails to list all of the changes it made regarding slavery

The constitution of the CSA was clear in their goals to maintain and continue owning slaves as property. Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way; Article IV, Section 2 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery; Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3 offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by the Confederacy.

There was nothing unconstitutional about Lincoln doing this. He did this in direct response to an Attack on the US, which was his job.

Not surprising, more ignorance from someone who thinks facts make you a Lincoln Shill. Funny how lost causers can't seem to make up their mind if the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves or not, guess it just depends on which bu****it they are trying to pass off at that moment.

It's funny that she knows that slaves in Galveston, Texas, already knew they were free before being informed they were free. It's also funny that she thinks that in June 1865 the 13th Amendment had yet to be written, let alone passed. Yet several northern states rescinded it? strange they rescinded something that hadn't been written or passed yet.

FYI the 13th Amendment was written in early 1864, passed by the US Senate in April 1864, and passed by the House in Jan 1865. Lincoln himself signed it Feb 1st 1865 although not necessary for a president to sign amendments.

By June 1865, the 13th amendment had been written, passe by congress, and signed, and ratified by (in order) Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, Ney York, Pennsylvania, West Vriginia, Missouri, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, Loiusiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas (all before Lincoln died), and Connecticut after Lincoln died. 5 more states were needed to ratify at this point, and no state rescinded its ratification.

As far as her comment on Mississippi, its true, someone did make a mistake and not send the paperwork finalizing it's ratification until 2006. It officially ratified the 13th amendment in 1995 (that's 1995, not the 1800s)

There was nothing illegal about adding West Virginia as a state, and the war wasn't about ending slavery, it was about the south keeping slavery. West Virginia was also required to abolish slavery in its state constitution before being allowed to join the Union. proving once again, the SCV is lying to you.

NJ freed its last 16 or so slaves on Dec 6th, 1865, the same day as all of the southern states that still had slavery. NJ passed gradual abolition in 1804. In 1800, there were 12,000 slaves in NJ. By 1840, there were 674. In 1846, NJ abolished chattel slavery, making the last slaves left in NJ "apprentices." By 1860, there were 18 slaves left in NJ.

As far as the EP not freeing any slaves, it caused hundreds of thousands of slaves to be freed either by their owners who thought the EP freed them, or by the slaves themselves who escaped because they thought it freed them. Jefferson Davis in 1864 accused Lincoln of freeing 2 million of the South's slaves, so something freed them, and that was before the 13th Amendment.

The real Juneteenth is Janteenth in New Jersey. NJ was the last state to free the last slaves Jan 23 1866, not Texas. NJ as a union state was exempt from Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation (it freed zero slaves). It was only until recently that a group noticed the flaws with both the left and the right trying to use the day as a chance to virtue signal for votes and decided that a sign should be put up in NJ, with the purpose on how we should celebrate the official end of slavery Jan 23 1866.

This entire thing ignores that Lincoln was, in fact, acting in self-defense. The South attacked the US. The CSA started the war.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 15
The Congress shall have Power To ...provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions....

This gives Congress the power to call up the militia in the even of an attack from outside, or inside the US. The 1795 Militia act gave the president to call up militia in the even of an attack, if congress was out of session. A 1799 act passed by Congress gave him the power to call up 75k troops until the next session of congress. On the same day he called up these troops he called congress back into session.

Whether or not the south had legally seceded, the US President's response to an attack was legal and constitutional.

If Lincoln’s assertion that the Southern States never seceded is correct, then he committed treason according to Article III of the Constitution by virtue of his invasion. If these States did, in fact, secede, which all evidence makes clear that they had the right to do, then he violated Article II of the Constitution by sailing hostile warships into Charleston, inaugurating war, and then unilaterally calling for 75,000 troops for the purpose of invading a sovereign country that had acted only in its own self-defense. That this analysis is factual is self-evident to anyone who has any understanding of the nature of the union and the powers legitimately delegated to the office of President per the Constitution.

According to the Calhoun Institute, this quote is a "paraphrase" of Calhoun's Speech on the Oregon Bill, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, June 27, 1848, which was against the bill and the Missouri Compromise and very pro slavery.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002087601150&view=1up&seq=3&skin=2021

"The government of the uncontrolled numerical majority, is but the absolute and despotic form of popular government...If we do not defend ourselves none will defend us' if we yield we will be more and more pressed as we recede; and if we submit we will be trampled underfoot."

- John C. Calhoun