I'm not a historian but if you want a piece of literature inspired by the Civil War you won't do much better than Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels." It won a Pulitzer Prize. The film "Gettysburg" is based on it (though obviously the book is better than the film). It's one of my absolute favorite books.

One of my favorite books is The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane which is about the gritty and unglamorous reality of battle in the American Civil War.