1. Robert Anderson:

• Maury Klein - "Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War," 1997, ISBN0679447474.
• David Detzer - Allegiance: Fort Sumter and the Beginning of the Civil War," 2001, ISBN 0151006415.

• Hirshson, Stanley - "The White Tecumseh," 1997, ISBN 0-471-16578-1. Hirshson now and then finds something good to say about Sherman, but presents the evidence fairly, lots of revealing Sherman quotes.
• Sherman, Wm. T. - "Memoirs of General William T. Sherman," ISBN 0-940450-65-8. Sometimes comical. Read them online at the Gutenberg Project website, along with the memoires of Grant and Sheridan, no page numbers.
  

• Engle, Stephen - "Don Carlos Buell : Most Promising of All," 1999, ISBN 0807825123. The author doesn't quite do justice to Buell, but the facts are presented in abundance and speak for themselves.
• Reid, Richard - "The Army that Buell Built", 1994, ISBN 1877713058.

• Lamers, William - "The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans," 1961, paperback 1999, ISBN 080712396X. The best and the only recent biography of Rosecrans. Lamers is a little partial to Rosecrans, understandably so, since he gave us marvels like the Tullahoma campaign and the crossing or the Tennessee river. Lamers defends Rosecrans' handling of the right wing of his army at Chickamauga, but doesn't clearly bring out that Rosecrans set things up so that the slightest accident would undo him. Rosecrans should not have sent McCook so far away to Alpine, jeopardizing the rest of his army, and he shouldn't have berated subordinates in public. He should not have rejected sound advice from Thomas and, above all, Rosecrans should not have left the field on 20 Sept. 1863
  

• Van Horne, Thomas - "The Life of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas," Scribners 1882. No author had better access to Thomas than Van Horne.
• Van Horne, Thomas - "History of the Army of the Cumberland" in 3 volumes, Cincinnati, 1875. Click here to read the text (no maps).
  
• Cist, Henry M. - "The Army of the Cumberland," 1886. Available in reprint from: The Archive Society, 130 Locust Street, Harrisburg, PA  17101. Cist was on Rosecrans' and Thomas' staff and later functioned as secretary of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland.
• Cleeves, Freeman  - "Rock of Chickamauga," 1948, 1986, ISBN 0806119780.
• McKinney, Francis - "Education in Violence, The Life of George H. Thomas and the History of the Army of the Cumberland," 1961, 1991, ISBN 0962529052, a classic work of analytical biography. See my book review on Amazon, scroll down. Contact me if you want to read excerpts from the book,  and I will send you an HTML file.
• Thomas, Wilbur - "General George H. Thomas: The Indomitable Warrior," 1964. The serious work of a scholarly crusader.

(pg. 7) "...after many years of reflection, research, and study, the author would rather right the wrong of slander and neglect to General George H. Thomas, 'the Rock of Chickamauga,' than anything else."

(pg. 19) "General Thomas did more than any other commander to bring victory to the North and to preserve the Union. Paradoxically, American miltary history affords no other instance of neglect, mistreatment, and hatred toward one of unsurpassed integrity, courage, and performance in behalf of his country that even remotely compares with the mistreatment of this great man. The consequences to the Union cause, if Thomas had not made his indispensable contributions at Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Nashville, prove the point. Certain defeat in either of the two first-named battles, but for Thomas, might well have resulted in permanent disunion growing out of the deadlocked Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia."

• Palumbo, Frank A. -  "George Henry Thomas Major General, U.S.A.: The Dependable General, Supreme in Tactics of Strategy and Command," 1983. Adds little to the discussion, often uses long citations from reports instead of analysis.
• O'Connor, Richard - Thomas: Rock of Chickamauga," 1948. A wealth of anecdotes about Thomas, but no footnotes.
• Piatt, Donn - "General George H. Thomas: A Critical Biography," 1893. Piatt was a lawyer who fought at Bull Run and later presided as judge-advocate over the Buell inquiry. His uniquely privileged access to the corridors of power lends authority to his ferocious attacks on Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Lee, and others. He died after finishing his chapter on Chattanooga, and Gen. Henry Boynton wrote the concluding chapters.
• Einolf, Christopher J. - George Thomas: Virginian for the Union," 2007. Written from the point of view of a Grant fan. See my book review on Amazon.
• Broadwater, Robert  P. - "General George H. Thomas," 2009. Author sincerely admires Thomas, wants to rescue his name from obscurity, but mutes criticism of Grant and Sherman. Gets it right about Sheridan at Chickamauga. See my book review on Amazon.
  
• Bobrick, Benson - "Master of War: The Life of General Geroge H. Thomas," Simon and Schuster, 2009. The best Thomas biography yet, although there is a fair amount of factual errors, and he doesn't understand Hooker's essential role at the battle of Misssionary ridge (crushing Bragg's left flank which made possible the success of Thoma's charge up the middle). Takes the gloves almost all the way off in dealing with Grant and Sherman. See my book review on Amazon.
  

• McFeely, William S. - "Grant: A Biography," 1997, ISBN 0945707150.  His analysis of Grant's post-war political career is excellent, but his treatment of the war years is somewhat of a gloss. In addition, in his analysis of Grant's Memoirs he doesn't mention Grant's embellishments or outright distortions of the record. He does, however, atribute to Grant the "evil" of "personal hollowness."
• Havelin, Kate - "Ulysses S. Grant," Lerner, 2004. Out of print. I didn't read it yet, but after 5 years still no review on Amazon. Author writes on back cover that Grant "retained a reputation for honesty despite the corruption scandals that rocked his administration." Don't think that this book is the one.
  
• Grant, U.S. - "Personal Memoirs" (written with considerable help from Badeau and Frederick Grant, originally published, edited, and probably partially rewritten by Mark Twain), Da Capo paperback ed. 1952, ISBN 0-306-80172-8, Grant reveals himself and the truth, no matter how hard he tries to obscure it. Entire text also online at the Bartleby website, but without page numbers.

• Wittenberg, Eric J. - "Little Phil: A Reassessment of the Civil War Leadership of Gen. Phillip H. Sheriden," 1996, ISBN 1574883852. A good dissection of Sheridan's career with Grant in Virginia. See my book review on Amazon. Scroll up.
  

• Sheriden, Philip H. - "Personal Memoirs," 1888, 1992, ISBN 0306804875, another demonstration that the more one tries to hide the truth, the more it leaps out at you. You can download for free the PDF file from Google Ebooks.
  

8. John Schofield

• Connelly, Donald B. - "John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship," 2006. Amost definitive. See my articles Schofield vs. Stanley and Sherman's Worst Day of the War to see what he missed. See also my book review at Amazon.
  

• Schofield, John M. - "Forty-Six Years in the Army," 1897, 1998, ISBN 0806130806, a fitting conclusion to the Grant-Sherman-Sheridan-Schofield martyrology. Available at Google Ebooks in PDF and in a marginally useful EPUB file (full of OCR scanning errors).
  

9. Henry Halleck

• Ambrose, Stephen E. - "Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff," LSU Press 1962. Very good for 1962, almost revisionist history, a good treatment of the great mystery man of the Civil War.

• Marszalek, John F. - "Commander of All Lincoln's Armies : A Life of General Henry W. Halleck," 2004. Very well documented, supercedes Ambrose. His grasp of the battles in KY, TN, and GA is limited. He skips Mill Springs, collapses Stones River and Tullahoma into one battle, buys into the myth that Grant directed the battle of Chattanooga, and doesn't mention Buell's arrival at Shiloh which saved Grant's army. I wish that the author, who doesn't seem to like Halleck very much, had spared us some of the loaded language. I prefer to draw my own conclusions. See my book review on Amazon.
  

10. Battles:

• Cozzens, Peter - "The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga," 1994, ISBN 0-252-01922-9, tells amost the entire story about Grant at Chattanooga, and it isn't pretty.
• Cozzens, Peter - "This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga," 1998, ISBN 0252065948.
• Cozzens, Peter - "No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River," 1990, ISBN: 0252065948.
• Cozzens, Peter - "The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth," 1997, ISBN 0807823201.
• Tucker, Glen - "Chickamauga - Bloody Battle in the West," 1991 ISBN: 0831713399, the clearest account of the battle I have read. Excellent maps.
• Sword, Wiley - "Mountains Touched With Fire, Chattanooga Besieged," 1995, ISBN0-312-15593-X.
• Sword, Wiley - "Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville," 1996, ISBN 0962603449..
• McDonough, James Lee - "Chattanooga - A death grip on the Confederacy," 1984, ISBN 0-87049-425-2. Apparently the author didn't read the reports of Bragg and Osterhaus (they compliment each other).
  
• Bradley, Michael - "Tullahoma," 2000, ISBN 1572491671.
• Baumgartner, Richard A. - "Kennesaw Mountain June 1864: Bitter Standoff at the Gibralter of Georgia," 1998. Rather Sherman-centric ("Sherman's rationale and steeled mindset," pg. 165). The main value of this book (and his book on the battle of Chattanooga) are the eyewitness accounts. The battle analyses aren't what I call incisive. Still, worthy additions to any CW collection.

• "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," 4 volumes, Yoseloff ed. 1956
• Leckie, Robert -" None Died in Vain, The Saga of the American Civil War,",1990, ISBN 0-06-016280-5.
• Cuomo, Mario, ed. - "Lincoln on Democracy," 1990, ISBN 0-06-039126-X.
• Boatner, Mark - "The Civil War Dictionary,"1991, ISBN 0679733922. An essential reference tool at a modest price.
• Buell, Thomas - "The Warrior Generals," 1998 (reprint), ISBN 0609801732, makes some good points, misses others, gives Grant too many passes.
• Watkins, Sam - "Co. Aytch or A Side Show of the Big Show," Morningside Bookshop Press, 1982.
• Greene, William B. - "Letters from a sharpshooter, Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865," Historic Publications. Called Grant and Meade his "commanding murders."
  
• Hebert, Walter - "Fighting Joe Hooker," 1941, ISBN 0803273231.
• Evans, David - "Sherman's Horsemen," 1996 ISBN 0253329639.
• Symonds, Craig - "Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War," 1997, ISBN 0700608206.
• Hallock, Judith Lee - "Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat," 1991, ISBN 0817305432.
• Starr, Stephen Z. - "The Union Cavalry in the Civil War," 1985, ISBN  0807108596.
• Woodworth, Steven - "Jefferson Davis and his Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West," 1990, ISBN 0-7006-0461-8, all you need to know about Bragg, Polk, Cleburne, Hardee, Price, Hindman, Longstreet, etc. Not too kind in his comments on the Northern commanders.
• David Herbert Donald, "Lincoln," 1995, ISBN 0-684-80846-3, excellent on Lincoln, not so good on military side.
• Reinhart, Joseph R. - "A History of the 6th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry U.S.: The Boys Who Feared No Noise," Beargrass Press, 2000, ISBN 0970224001.
• Reinhart, Joseph R - "Two Germans in the Civil War: The Diary of John Daeuble and the Letters of Gottfried Rentschler, 6th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry," Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2004. The translated diary and letters cover the period from Brown's Ferry at Chattanooga to Atlanta.
  
• Wilson, James Harrison, "Under the Old Flag" [memoirs], Appleton 1912. Excellent writer who, while owing his career to Grant, and while generally praising him, harshly criticizes Grant for his behavior toward Thomas during the Nashville campaign. Also offers a good insider's perspective on the first part of Grant's drive toward Richmond.
• Stiles, T.J. - "Jesse James - Last Rebel of the Civil War," 2002, ISBN 0375405836. Excellent treatment of the origins of the Civil War which was cooked up in Missouri (the James' home state) and sent over the border to Kansas in 1855, way before Ft. Sumter.
• Samuel C. Williams - "General John T.Wilder - Commander of the Lightning Brigade," 1936. Allthough written in a melodramatic style more typical of the 19th than the 20th century, this portrait of a truly astounding man, who, before Wilson and even Forrest, invented the concept of mobile shock troops, armed his brigade out of his own pocket with Spencer repeaters, is still the only relatively complete biography available. 
• Hazen, General William B.- "A Narrative of Military Service," 1885.
• Wittenberg, Eric J. - "Little Phil: A Reassessment of the Civil War Leadership of Gen. Phillip H. Sheriden," 1996, ISBN 1574883852.
• Shanks, William F. G. - "Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals," 1866.

• "Grant" by Brooks D. Simpson, 2000 - tendentious, occasionally inaccurate, follows in the worn footsteps of Adam Badeau. Simpson is kind of a fanboy for Grant, and not a very happy one. Read the one-star reviews (including mine) at Amazon or, for entertainment, the five-star reviews. The book is out of print, whereas McFeely's older book on Grant (1997) is not only still in print, but also available in paperback, audio cassette, and even leather bound. The market has spoken and found Simpson's book wanting. With internal demons like his, how much more can internet stalkers do to him?
• "Like Men of War" by Noah Andre Trudeau - hastily written, bases treatment of Nashville on discredited source (Horn).
• "Grant" novel by Max Byrd - slanted behind a pretense of impartiality. The author puts a defense of Grant's performance at Cold Harbor in the mouth of a one-armed survivor of the slaughter. The usual excuse - Grant was poorly served by his subordinate generals. Sick.
• "Henry Halleck's War" by Curt Anders - Demonstrates what we already know, namely that Halleck wasn't stupid or incompetent. Passes over Halleck's ambition, ruthless partisanship and vindictiveness. The author calls Buell a mental and moral midget and an "empty uniform with an inability to focus his mind or act in accordance with any apparent principle." There is no point to this belated character assassination, nor to the book itself.