26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, pretty thorough, missing a couple of things, December 10, 2001
This review is from: Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War: Authentic Accounts of the Strange and Unexplained (Paperback)
Let me say first of all that I recommend this book very highly. It's a great book for a variety of reasons. It falls short on two glaring counts, so I didn't give it a 5 star rating. Don't let that dissuade you from buying it.
There are certain people who will like this book and some who won't. It wasn't really a "scary" book with spooky ghost stories. It's more of a curiousity book. The stories are fascinating to say the least. I enjoyed them all. They left me hungry for more which is where the book fell short, sort of. More on that later.
Compared to other books on Civil War ghosts, I like this one better because it has more meat in it. I saw some stories in here that I have seen written elsewhere, but I found this book to be more thorough and contain more information about the stories.
The only thing I really didn't like about the book is that it has no source documentation. I mean none. No bibliography, not even footnotes. For instance Chapter 4 is about John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. I found his dream to be very interesting. The only problem is, the author doesn't give a source for the dream. He paraphrases it very well, but at the end, I'm left starving for more information about this fascinating dream. No footnotes, no bibliography, no sources cited. As a history buff, I'm always seeking more information. There's no trail. Well, after diligent search, I found the original dream in an old book. I can thank the author for at least introducing me to the story. A footnote or bibliography would have saved a lot of time. Additionally, the book title claims "authentic accounts." The problem is that with no source documentation, it is hard to determine what is authentic and what is not. Regardless, the stories were fascinating, and I had a hard time putting the book down. When I did, I wanted to seek more information on the stories, but alas, no sources cited.
I'm giving this book four stars because I liked it. I subtracted one star for no bibliography and no footnotes. A bibliography alone broken down by chapter would have been sufficient to raise it to five stars. However, in fairness to the author, he probably didn't write the book for scholars. He wrote the book for regular people who don't bother with footnotes and bibliographies. I think at least some credit for sources other than the Acknowledgments on page ix would have been good. The appendices in the back regarding Civil War Ghost Tours and Haunted Hotels were helpful. Overall, I did like this book, and I'm glad I bought it.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ghosts and Haunts of the Cival War: Authentic Accounts, December 31, 2000
This review is from: Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War: Authentic Accounts of the Strange and Unexplained (Paperback)
The fact that this book claims to contain "authentic" accounts of cival war ghost stories is what attracted me to read it before choosing any other titles on the subject. I was disappointed that the author does very little in the way of explaining how he came to the conclusion that these accounts are indeed authentic. However, whether authentic or not, the book makes for good reading. I couldn't put it down! And for anyone interested, the book contains an appendix in the back with listings of places offering Cival War Ghost tours as well as Haunted Hotels, complete with addresses and phone numbers.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Federal Phantoms and Southern Spooks, October 29, 2005
This review is from: Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War: Authentic Accounts of the Strange and Unexplained (Paperback)
The title of this book promises "ghosts and haunts" and while there are ghosts to be found in this book there are far too many stories that do not involve a ghost, spook, specter, phantom or even a woolly booger. Premonitions and visions may indeed fall into the category of paranormal events and these stories may be very interesting but they do not involve ghosts and that is what the title of this book promises. A little truth in advertising please.
There are several ghost stories in this book and some of them are quite good. For example, the chapter dealing with the ghost of General Cleburne is very good and contains everything a good ghost story should have. A little background history, a little ghost history and recent eyewitness accounts are what make for a credible and full bodied ghost story and this chapter contains them all. Unfortunately, most of the chapters that do deal with ghosts have very few eyewitness accounts and are mostly just old legends and campfire tales. This book is also just full of terms like "they say" as in "They say on certain nights when the moon, blah, blah, blah." There are few things that get under my skin more than a ghost story that ends with a "they say." I want to know who says and when they said it and it seems to me that with a little leg work the author could answer those questions for me. Just to add insult to injury there are several historical errors in this book, which could have been avoided if the author had just had an editor with some knowledge of Civil War history.
It is often said that every dark cloud has a silver lining and that is surely the case with this book. Like the previously mentioned chapter about General Cleburne there are some very good chapters in this book. The writing is clear and very readable and I must confess that for the most part I enjoyed this book. Mr. Coleman has written two other ghost books since this one and each one was better than it's predecessor so I must view this book as sort of a learning experience for someone who has grown into a fine author in this genre. I would also add that the appendices in the back that list addresses and phone numbers for a number of Civil War ghost tours and haunted hotels are probably worth the price of the book all by themselves. Web sites for the tours and hotels aren't listed but maybe that can be added in a future edition. There are lots of Civil War ghost books out there and this one may not be the best of the lot but it certainly isn't the worst either.
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