Thunder on the Tennessee by G. Clifton Wisler

Thunder on the Tennessee Reviews

• 
  Devyn

  A good children's Civil War book that doesn't glorify one side over the other and is unapologetic and upfront to the guts, gore, and horror of combat. For all the patriotic ' For Honor, Duty and Country' in this book, there is equal amounts of honest questioning by a young man wondering why he, and others like him, are far away from home fighting and killing and dying in some state they've never been for a war they don't understand.
• 
  Sandybear76

  I read this while waiting for my son's swim events at the pool. A boy just shy of his 16th birthday enlists in the Confederate Army when his father is asked to form a new unit from Texas near the Brazos River area. Willie's father had fought in two wars already and many local men enlisted when he started a new unit. They traveled to Houston and trained there for months before traveling to Tennessee for actual fighting. Willie and his father and the unit are in a few small battles before getting to Shiloh, one of the bloody battles in the Civl War history.
• 
  Kaleena

  This book had a lot of blood and gore for a middle grade book. However, I do think that overall the story was good. The main character, "Willie" is honest and brave. Being just a teenager, he entered into the Civil War with his father. I cannot imagine experiencing the horrors that the men, children, and women faced during the four years of the war. This is a good living-book for that time period...I would just recommend an age of around 10 or older for reading.
• 
  Marsha

  Written for young teens, this book is sort of like All Quiet On the Western Front except boring. It tells the story of the battle of Shiloh (Civil War). I liked the main character, Willie, a fourteen or fifteen year old kid from Texas who joins up with the Confederate Army along with his dad. They are from a long line of soldiers--Willie's grandpa and great-grandpa both died in battle (I hope I am remembering the details correctly).
  
  Part of my difficulty with this book might stem from the fact that it is written from a Confederate point of view. I think the point the author was trying to make is that there were good people on both sides of the conflict and many of the soldiers from the south weren't pro-slavery necessarily. The battle was pretty distressing and then the book just kind of ended with little resolution. Willie was just going to continue fighting for a cause he didn't even understand.
• 
  Catherine Mustread

  Willie learns the horrors of war in Tennessee during the Civil War.
• 
  Matthew

  Fantastic narrative that does a wonderful job of connecting the human story with the tactical side of war. Great read!