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 tries to find 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.

• 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", 1999, ISBN 080712396X.

• 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.
• 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. Online as an "E-book" at the website of the Gutenberg Project, albeit without page numbers, maps, or illustrations.
• 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 theCumberland", 1961, 1991, ISBN 0962529052, a classic work of analytical biography.
• 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.

• The definitive biography about Grant has yet to be written. When it is, it will answer the fundamental questions: What was Grant, penniless in 1861, doing in the summer of 1864 with an "investment advisor" named J. Russell Jones, how much money did he pocket from the freedmen forced labor camps in Mississippi run by an officer in his command named Col. John Eaton, and how did that small man steal those big shoes? In the meantime there is William S. McFeely's book "Grant: A Biography", 1997, ISBN 0945707150.  McFeely's analysis of Grant's post-war political career is excellent, but his treatment of the war years is superficial. In addition, in his analysis of Grant's Memoirs he doesn't mention one of Grant's embellishments or outright distortions of the record.
  
• Grant, U.S. - "Personal Memoirs" (written with considerable help from Badeau, originally published and probably edited 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 except index also online at the site of Richard Jensen/CSP.

• 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.
• Bradley, Michael - "Tullahoma," 2000, ISBN 1572491671.

• "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.
• Schofield, John M. - "Forty-Six Years in the Army", 1897, 1998, ISBN 0806130806, a fitting conclusion to the Grant-Sherman-Sheridan-Schofield martyrology.
• 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.
• 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..
• 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 good 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.
  
• Ambrose, Stephen E. - "Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff", LSU Press 1962, still the best treatment of the great mystery man of the Civil War.
• 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 Simpson - tendentious, occasionally inaccurate, follows in  the worn footsteps of the hack Adam Badeau.
• "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.