Thousands of books have been written about the Civil War; and more about the armies than about the navies and the civil interests together. Yet, even about the armies, there are very few that give a just idea of how every part of the war was correlated with every other part and with the very complex whole; while fewer still give any idea of how closely the navies were correlated with the armies throughout the long amphibious campaigns. The only works mentioned here are either those containing the original evidence or those written by experts directly from the original evidence. And of course there are a good many works belonging to both these classes for which no room can be found in a bibliography so very brief as the present one must be. _The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies_, 128 vols. (1880-1901), and _Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion_, 26 vols. (1894-), form two magnificent collections of original evidence published by the United States Government. But they have some gaps which nothing else can fill. _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_ (1887-89), written by competent witnesses on both sides, gives the gist of the story in four volumes (published afterwards in eight). _The Rebellion Record_, 12 vols. (1862-68), edited by Frank Moore, forms an interesting collection of non-official documents. _The Story of the Civil War_, 4 vols. (1895-1913), begun by J. C. Ropes, and continued by W. R. Livermore, is an historical work of real value. Larned's _Literature of American History_ contains an excellent bibliography; but it needs supplementing by bibliographies of the present century. Inquiring readers should consult the bibliographies in volumes 20 and 21 (by J. K. Hosmer) in the _American Nation_ series. There are many works of a more special kind that deserve particular attention. General E. P. Alexander's _Military Memoirs of a Confederate_ (1907), the _Transactions of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts_, Major John Bigelow's _The Campaign of Chancellorsville_ (1910), and J. D. Cox's _Military Reminiscences_, 2 vols. (1900), are admirable specimens of this very extensive class.