Senator Charles Sumner borrowed Battle-fields of the South in 1864, soon after its publication. Written by an English soldier, the book expressed a behind-the-scenes confederate perspective on the war. This volume includes a map of the confederate victory at Fredericksburg, Virginia.
General Collection, Library of Congress
Battle-fields of the South from Bull Run to Fredericksburg...by An English Combatant, London: Smith, Elder and co., Volume 2, 1863
Wartime Reading
Thomas Jefferson believed "there is … no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer." His broad approach to book collecting shaped the holdings of the Library of Congress, which Congress established as a resource for its members. Many senators and representatives were voracious readers. During the Civil War, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner—a staunch abolitionist who later introduced bills for the Freedmen's Bureau and Thirteenth Amendment—borrowed hundreds of works of literature, philosophy, and history from the congressional library.
Senator Charles Sumner borrowed Battle-fields of the South in 1864, soon after its publication. Written by an English soldier, the book expressed a behind-the-scenes confederate perspective on the war. This volume includes a map of the confederate victory at Fredericksburg, Virginia.
General Collection, Library of Congress
