Patrick Gilmore, History of the National Peace Jubilee and Great Musical Festival: Held in the City of Boston (1871)
The bandleader who conceived and coordinated the music festival wrote a history of the event. A facsimile edition of the 1871 publication was released in 2010.
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008)
Faust, a Harvard history professor, examines how soldiers and civilians responded to the unprecedented scope of death during the Civil War.
Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992)
In this fascinating book, Wills explores Lincoln's use of a small handful of words to reshape the meaning of America. Central to his argument is Lincoln's own obsession with death and his awareness that a cemetery filled with recently buried Union and Confederate soldiers provided the backdrop for this philosophical remaking of America.