Myths of the Civil War - The Fact, Fiction, and Science behind the Civil War¿s Most-Told Stories

In the spirit of Robert Adair-s cult classic The Physics of Baseball, here is a book that tackles the long-cherished myths of Civil War history-and ultimately shatters them, based on physics and mathematics. At what range was a Civil War sniper lethal? Did bullets ever -rain like hail-? Could one ever step across a battlefield by stepping only on bodies and never hard ground? How effective were Civil War muskets and rifles? How accurate are photographs and paintings?

In this genre-bending work of history, Scott Hippensteel puts the tropes of Civil War history under the microscope and says, -Wait a minute!- Combining science and history, Hippensteel reexamines much that we hold dear about the Civil War and convincingly argues that memoirs and histories have gotten it wrong.

This is a work of history and science for our era of -fake news--and for well beyond. Readers will never look at the Civil War the same way again.