Peter Cozzens

Peter Cozzens is the author of sixteen critically acclaimed books on the American Civil War and the American West. Cozzens also is a recently retired Foreign Service Officer, U. S. Department of State.

His newest book is The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, published by Alfred A. Knopf in October 2016.

All of Cozzens' books have been selections of the Book of the Month Club, History Book Club, and/or the Military Book Club. Cozzens’ This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga and The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga were both Main Selections of the History Book Club and were chosen by Civil War Magazine as two of the 100 greatest works ever written on the conflict.

The History Book Club called his five-volume Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars "the definitive resource on the military struggle for the American West."

Cozzens's Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign was a Choice "Outstanding Academic Title" for 2009.

He was a frequent contributor to the New York Times "Disunion" series, and he writes for America's Civil War, Civil War Times Illustrated, MHQ, and Smithsonian, among other publications.

In 2002 Cozzens received the American Foreign Service Association’s highest award, given annually to one Foreign Service Officer for exemplary moral courage, integrity, and creative dissent.

Cozzens is a member of the Advisory Council of the Lincoln Prize and of the Literary Society of Washington DC.

Cozzens and his wife Antonia Feldman reside in Kensington, Maryland.

Articles by this Author

Brutal Reckoning in the Creek War, Winter 2024 | Vol. 69, No. 1

Two hundred years ago, the conflict in which the U.S. seized the Deep South from its Native inhabitants was a turning point in American history, but it is largely forgotten today.

De Soto Ravages the South, Summer 2023 | Vol. 68, No. 4

Hernando de Soto marched across what is now eleven U.S. states, leaving a trail of destruction and disease.

Tecumseh and The Prophet at Tippecanoe, Winter 2021 | Vol. 66, No. 1

While his brother Tecumseh was assembling the greatest Indian confederation the U.S. would ever confront, the “Prophet” launched a fateful preemptive attack in Indiana Territory.

Featured Authors

Acheson, Dean

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was an attorney and statesman who served as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953 under President Harry Truman. A key architect of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Acheson stressed the importance of multilateral organizations in the fight against totalitarianism. Prior to his service in the Truman Administration, Acheson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, worked at Washington law firm Covington & Burling, and served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for one year under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Ambrose, Stephen E.

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) was a historian and professor who wrote on military history, presidential history, and American expansion and foreign policy. Ambrose has been praised for his biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, and for helping to galvanize interest in World War II.

Becker, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books. Her history When The War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge won accolades from the Robert F. Kennedy book award, while her recent biography of female conflict journalists You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War won the 2022 Sperber Book Prize and Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize. She is also the author of America’s Vietnam War: A Narrative History for young adults.

Blight, David W.

David W. Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. Recently, Blight has written A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation, and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, which won the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize.

Brinkley, Douglas

Douglas Brinkley, a distinguished professor of history at Rice University and Contributing Editor of American Heritage, has written more than 20 books, most recently The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (Harper 2009) and The Reagan Diaries (HarperCollins 2007). Brinkley earned his B.A from Ohio State University University in 1982, and his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 1989.