My Reading Room: Read. Reflect. Repeat.

Welcome to my bookish war room—a curated chaos of military history, memoirs, tactical truths, and emotional gut punches. It's basically where Sass meets source material.

My bookshelf isn't your average reading list for a military historian—it's a trail of literary breadcrumbs, bourbon-soaked (or coffee-stained), and late-night rabbit holes that helped me piece together stories that military history books forgot.

As a veteran, military spouse, historian, and researcher, I often come across books, papers, and journals that reveal the raw, unpolished realities of military life—stories that go beyond the refined, parade-ground versions. These narratives aren't always easy to find. I had to dig, like many others, tackling military spouse history. I had to get real cozy with obscure memoirs and footnotes hiding in forgotten corners of archives and bookstores (and online). So, this space? It's for you — the fellow diggers, the skeptics, the curious minds who want to tell stories that matter. Because trust me — my shelves have layers.

Here, you'll find the good stuff or items that might be on your shelf but you have not gotten to them yet.

Military memoirs that don't sugarcoat things.
Academic works that opened up entirely new perspectives.
Journals and letters that whisper, "We were here too."
History deep-dives that go beyond the textbook.

And yes — books that finally say, "Hey, military spouses exist, and they are kinda badass."

These books shaped my research, challenged my thinking, and made me yell, "Why wasn't this included in my history classes?"

Whether you're into battle, military maps or emotional minefields, these books do deliver. Some are scholarly, some are snarky, and all say something meaningful about service, sacrifice, and the spaces in between. I will continue to add to the library over time. I will periodically write blog posts discussing a book, journal, or paper that is highlighted in "My Library." So, grab your coffee... or bourbon, beer, water, tea, wine (no judgment), kick off those metaphorical combat boots, heels, or slippers, and browse away.

Warning: this may provoke strong opinions and create an immediate urge to text someone a quote.

Final Note:

If anything, let’s break open the locked drawers of military history. I invite you to dig through it with me—coffee-stained notebooks and all. This is a tribute to the historians, researchers, writers, and every group that’s ever been left out of military historical narratives. Find the story– tell it louder.

Campfollowing A History of the Military Wife. By Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone	Women Camp Followers of the American Revolution By Walter Hart Blumenthal	Women Of Empire 19th Century Army Officers' Wives in India and the U.S. West. By Verity McInnis
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence By Dr. Norman F. Dixon	Charlie Company's Journey Home The Forgotten Impact on the Wives of Vietnam Veterans. By Andrew West.	Roses and Thorns A Handbook for the U.S. Marines Enlisted Wives
The Army Wife What she ought to know about the customs of the service and the management of an Army household. By Nancy Shea	Vietnam Wives Facing the Challenges of Life with Veterans Suffering Post-traumatic Stress: 2nd ed. Revised and Expanded, By Aphrodiite Matsakis, Ph.D.	The Army Wife Handbook By Clella Reeves Collins
Peacekeepers and their Wives American Participation in the Multinational Force and Observers. By David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal	Waiting: one Wife's year of the Vietnam War By Linda Moore-Lanning	the American Revolution: A World War Edited by: David K .Allison & Larrie D, Ferrerio
A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs By Susie King Taylor	Following the Drum Women at the Valley Forge Encampment. By Nancy K. Loane	Military Wives in Arizona Territory A History of Women Who Shaped the Frontier. By Jan Cleere
Following the Guidon By Elizabeth B. Custer	Liberty's Daughter The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. By Mary Beth Norton	The Originals The Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron of World War II. By Sarah Byrn Rickman
Together Annals of an Army Wife. By Katherine Tupper Marshall	Army Wives on the American Frontier Living by the Bugles. By Anne Bruner Eales	They Also Serves Wives of Civil War Generals. By Robert Wilson & Carl Clair
Wives, Slave and Servant Girls Advertisements for female runaways in American newspapers, 1770-1783. By Don N. Hagist	The League of Wives The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home. By Heath Hardage Lee	The Coming of the Civil War 1837-1861, By John Niven
A People Numerous & Armed Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence- Revised Edition- By John Shy	World History Of WarFare By Christon I Archer, John R. Ferris,Holger H. Herwig,Timothy H.E. Travers	It's My Country Too Women's Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. Edited by Jerri Bell & Tracy Crow. Forward by Kayla Williams
Soap Suds Row The Bold Lives of Army Laundresses: 1802-1876, By Jennifer J. Lawrence	The Air Force Wife Handbook A Complete Social Guide, 2006 By Ann Crossley & Carol A. Keller	The Air Force Wife Handbook A Complete Social Guide, 1992 By Ann Crossley & Carol A. Keller
Battle Cries And Lullabies Women in War From Prehistory to the Present. By Linda Grant De Pauw	The Women of 76 By Sally Smith Booth	WACs Women's Army Corps, By Vera S. Williams
At Freedom's Table More Than 200 Years of Recipes & Remembrances from Military Wives. By Carolyn Quick Tillery	Invisible Women Junior Enlisted Army Wives. By Margaret C. Harrell	Naval Wives & Mistresses By Margarette Lincoln
Women Sailors & Sailors' Women An Untold Maritime History. By David Cordingly	Naval Wives & Mistresses 1st Edition, By Margarette Lincoln	The Colonel's Lady on the Western Frontier The Correspondence of Alice Kirk Grierson. Edited and with an introduction by Shirley Anne Leckie
Revolutionary Mothers Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin	Wings of Our Own by Paulette K. Johnson	Women as Army Surgeons Being The History Of The Women's Hospital Corps 1914-1919. By Flora Murray
The Custer Story By Margueri Merington	Uncle Sam's Brides The World of Military Wives. By Bonnie Domrose Stone, Betty Sowers Alt	The Journal of Women's Civil War History From the Home Front to the Front Lines: Volume 2. Accounts of the Sacrifice, Achievement, and Service of American Women, 1861-1865 Edited by Eileen Conklin
Army Letters From An Officer's Wife 1871-1878: Experience on the Western Frontier with the United States Army. By Frances M.A. Roe	Behind the Scenes The Tales of American Military Spouses Making a Difference a Military Spouse Legacy Project. ByCara Loken	Founding Mothers Women of America in the Revolutionary Era. By Linda Grant Depauw
After the Hero's Welcome A Pow Wife's Story of the Battle Against a New Enemy. By Dorothy Howard McDaniel	My Army Life and the Fort Phil Kearney Massacre By Frances C. Carrington	Women in the Civil War By Mary Elizabeth Massey
While They're At War The True Story of American Families on the Homefront 1st Edition. By Kristin Henderson	Since You Went Away World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front. By Judy Barrett Litoff & David C. Smith	Got Any Gum Chum? Gis in Wartime Britain, 1942-1945. By Helen D. Millgate
Rebel Rose Life of Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Confederate Spy. By Ishbell Ross	Mrs. Ike Memories and Reflections on the Life of Mamie Eisenhower. By Susan Eisenhower	A Woman Doctor's Civil War The Diary of Esther Hill Hawks (Women's Diaries and Letters of the South). By Gerald Schwartz
MILITARY BRATS Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress. By Mary Edwards Wertsch	The Women's Army Corps	Waiting Wives The Story of Schilling Manor, Home Front to the Vietnam War. By Donna Moreau
Intimate Strategies of the Civil War Military Commanders and Their Wives. By Carol K. Bleser & Lesley J. Gordon	Texas Society Directory of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution 1959. By Kelly McAdams SR.	Beating the G.I. Blues The Military Spouse's Guide to Living Well with Uncle Sam. By Bonnie Domrose Stone
Unsung Heroes Combat Nurses & Army Wives. By LaVada "Rue" Bishop Aquilina	Stories Untold Oral Histories of Wives of Vietnam Servicemen. By Charlotte McDaniel PhD	The American Military Tradition From Colonial Times to the Present. By John M. Carroll & Colin F. Baxter

Dissertations

Mayer, Holly A. ``Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and the Military Belonging to the

Army: Camp Followers and the Military Community during the American Revolution

Community during the American Revolution.” Dissertations, Theses, and Masters

Projects. Paper, College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences, 1990.

Shearer-Shineman, Anne R, Anne R. “Building a Tradition: Army Wives in the American

Revolution.” Dissertation, University of Wyoming, 1984.

Ward, Emma. “Ladylike: The Necessity and Neglect of Camp Followers in the Continental

Army.” Thesis Project, Western Kentucky University, 2021.

Articles

Ailes, Mary. “Camp Followers, Sutlers, and Soldiers’ Wives: Women in Early Modern Armies

(c. 1450– c. 1650).” In A Companion to Women’s Military History, 80–83. Brill, 2012.

Becker, Ann M. “Smallpox in Washington’s Army: Strategic Implications of the Disease During

the American Revolutionary War.” The Journal of Military History 68, no. 2 (April

2004).

Garrett, Heather. “Camp Followers, Nurses, Soldiers, and Spies: Women and the Camp

Followers, Nurses, Soldiers, and Spies: Women and the Modern Memory of the

Revolutionary War Modern Memory of the Revolutionary War.” History in the Making:

9, no. 5 (January 2016).

Harvard University. “Enlightenment and Revolution.” The Pluralism Project, 2024.

King, Martha J. “The ‘Pen of the Historian’: Mercy Otis Warren’s History of the American

Revolution.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 72, no. 2 (2011): 513.

Mattingly, Carol. “Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet (1818-1877).” Legacy: A Journal of American

Women Writers 18, no. 1 (2001).

Rees, John U. “‘The Multitude of Women …’ An Examination of the Numbers of Female

Followers With the Continental Army.” Journal of the Brigade of the American

Revolution XXIII, no. 4 (1992).

Schuetze, Sarah. “Carrying Home the Enemy: Smallpox and Revolution in American Love and

Letters, 1775–76.” Early American Literature 53, no. 1 (2018): 97–125.

Shields, David S., and Fredrika J. Teute. “The Republican Court and the Historiography of a

Women’s Domain in the Public Sphere.” Journal of the Early Republic 35, no. 2 (June

2015).

Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “American Female Historians in Context, 1770–1930.” Professional and

White-Collar Employments 3, no. 1/2 (December 31, 1993): 33–46.

———. “Collection: Kathryn Kish Sklar Papers.” Smith College Finding Aids. Accessed March

16, 2024. https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/1184.

Taylor, Lew. “America’s Forgotten Patriot: Mercy Otis Warren and the Writings That Fanned

the Flames of Revolution.” Saber and Scroll, A Publication of the APUS Historical

Studies Honor Society Journal 9, no. 2 (2020)

Homefront Archives: Behind the Uniform Military Spouse History Throughout American Military History (18th-21st Century)​

My Reading Room: Read. Reflect. Repeat.

Final Note:

Campfollowing

A History of the Military Wife. By Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone

Women Camp Followers of the American Revolution

By Walter Hart Blumenthal

Women Of Empire

19th Century Army Officers' Wives in India and the U.S. West. By Verity McInnis

On the Psychology of Military Incompetence

By Dr. Norman F. Dixon

Charlie Company's Journey Home

The Forgotten Impact on the Wives of Vietnam Veterans. By Andrew West.

Roses and Thorns

A Handbook for the U.S. Marines Enlisted Wives

The Army Wife

What she ought to know about the customs of the service and the management of an Army household. By Nancy Shea

Vietnam Wives

Facing the Challenges of Life with Veterans Suffering Post-traumatic Stress: 2nd ed. Revised and Expanded, By Aphrodiite Matsakis, Ph.D.

The Army Wife Handbook

By Clella Reeves Collins

Peacekeepers and their Wives

American Participation in the Multinational Force and Observers. By David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal

Waiting: one Wife's year of the Vietnam War

By Linda Moore-Lanning

the American Revolution: A World War

Edited by: David K .Allison & Larrie D, Ferrerio

A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs

By Susie King Taylor

Following the Drum

Women at the Valley Forge Encampment. By Nancy K. Loane

Military Wives in Arizona Territory

A History of Women Who Shaped the Frontier. By Jan Cleere

Following the Guidon

By Elizabeth B. Custer

Liberty's Daughter

The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. By Mary Beth Norton

The Originals

The Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron of World War II. By Sarah Byrn Rickman

Together

Annals of an Army Wife. By Katherine Tupper Marshall

Army Wives on the American Frontier

Living by the Bugles. By Anne Bruner Eales

They Also Serves

Wives of Civil War Generals. By Robert Wilson & Carl Clair

Wives, Slave and Servant Girls

Advertisements for female runaways in American newspapers, 1770-1783. By Don N. Hagist

The League of Wives

The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home. By Heath Hardage Lee

The Coming of the Civil War

1837-1861, By John Niven

A People Numerous & Armed

Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence- Revised Edition- By John Shy

World History Of WarFare

By Christon I Archer, John R. Ferris,Holger H. Herwig,Timothy H.E. Travers

It's My Country Too

Women's Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. Edited by Jerri Bell & Tracy Crow. Forward by Kayla Williams

Soap Suds Row

The Bold Lives of Army Laundresses: 1802-1876, By Jennifer J. Lawrence

The Air Force Wife Handbook

A Complete Social Guide, 2006 By Ann Crossley & Carol A. Keller

The Air Force Wife Handbook

A Complete Social Guide, 1992 By Ann Crossley & Carol A. Keller

Battle Cries And Lullabies Women in War

From Prehistory to the Present. By Linda Grant De Pauw

The Women of 76

By Sally Smith Booth

WACs

Women's Army Corps, By Vera S. Williams

At Freedom's Table

More Than 200 Years of Recipes & Remembrances from Military Wives. By Carolyn Quick Tillery

Invisible Women

Junior Enlisted Army Wives. By Margaret C. Harrell

Naval Wives & Mistresses

By Margarette Lincoln

Women Sailors & Sailors' Women

An Untold Maritime History. By David Cordingly

Naval Wives & Mistresses

1st Edition, By Margarette Lincoln

The Colonel's Lady on the Western Frontier

Homefront Archives: Behind the Uniform
Military Spouse History Throughout American Military History (18th-21st Century)