Myths of the Civil War

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.