“Lost Civil War” is treasure trove of period photos and text depicting and describing locations and artifacts associated with the Civil War that have not survived the test of time.  The Civil War was the first war delivered to home and farms far from the front through pictures; the straight lines and shattered bones, pristine fields and scoured landscapes.  This oversized coffee table book collects hundreds of those photos and maps with text.  The subjects are assembled in groups: Lost Battlefields, Lost Encampments, Lost Forts, Lost Signal Towers, Lost Historic Buildings, Lost Arsenals, Lost Soldiers’ Homes, Lost Hospitals, Lost Railroads and Depots, Lost Ships, Lost Photographs, Lost Cycloramas, and Lost Monuments.

The subjects are identified in each title with its ultimate demise mentioned just below.  Articles are generally two to four pages long with several pictures, period and modern, mostly black and white with some colorized, text explaining the subject and its significance and sidebars describing each picture.  Many battlefields have been lost to development, buildings were razed, burned or collapsed, ships were sunk, forts overwhelmed by nature and monuments removed as their presence became controversial.

War History Network members will enjoy words and photos of places they have visited or vicariously.  Each reader can select the topic that intrigues him or her most.  One of my choices is the before and after photos of Atlanta, those silent witnesses of the horror and devastation of war. Another is Ford’s Theatre, which I visited as a museum as a child and enjoyed a play as an adult, while repeatedly looking up at the bunting draped Presidential box.  I strain to recognize a familiar feature among the crowds of threadbare men and wonder, “Is Patrick Nealon in one of those meagre tents?”

“Lost Civil War” is a book to read.  Read the words, but also “read” the pictures.  Look at them.  Study them.  Find a detail you have never appreciated before, then set it on your coffee table until, your curiosity rekindled, you pick it up again, and again and again, but never stop.