Homemade Thunder: War on the South Coast 1861-1865

Bloody warfare raged along the South Atlantic coast from 1861 until 1865, much of it overlooked in the headlines of the day, later quickly and happily forgotten.

But it happened, American against American, brother against brother, father against son, neighbor against neighbor along the quiet tide creeks and hidden inlets and across the trackless, sighing green marshes.

From Port Royal to Ocean Pond, from the barricades of Charleston to the red clay rut roads that Sherman's veterans used, it's...