Even one hundred and fifty years later, we are haunted by the Civil War—by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment.In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union. Devotion to the Union bonded nineteenth-century Americans in the North and West against a slaveholding aristocracy in the South and a Europe that seemed destined for oligarchy. Northerners believed they were fighting to save the republic, and with it the world’s best hope for democracy.Once we understand the centrality of union, we can in turn appreciate the force that made northern victory possible: the citizen-soldier. Gallagher reveals how the massive volunteer army of the North fought to confirm American exceptionalism by salvaging the Union. Contemporary concerns have distorted the reality of nineteenth-century Americans, who embraced emancipation primarily to punish secessionists and remove slavery as a future threat to union—goals that emerged in the process of war. As Gallagher recovers why and how the Civil War was fought, we gain a more honest understanding of why and how it was won. (20110301)

Product Description: With striking visuals from the Library of Congress' unparalleled archive, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ILLUSTRATED TIMELINE OF THE CIVIL WAR is an authoritative and engaging narrative of the domestic conflict that determined the course of American history...read more

Thirty-seven newly commissioned, easy-to-read maps lead readers to each Civil War battle site and are accompanied by discussions of what occurred during each confrontation. 10,000 first printing.

Product Description: Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states' rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself...read more

Product Description: The Spotsylvania Campaign was a crucial period in the protracted confrontation between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in spring 1864. Approaching the campaign from a variety of perspectives, the contributors to this volume explore questions regarding high command, tactics and strategy, the impact of continuous fighting on officers and soldiers in both armies, and the ways in which some participants chose to remember and interpret the campaign...read more

Product Description: This volume explores the Shenandoah Valley campaign, best known for its role in establishing Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's reputation as the Confederacy's greatest military idol. The authors address questions of military leadership, strategy and tactics, the campaign's political and social impact, and the ways in which participants' memories of events differed from what is revealed in the historical sources...read more

Product Description: The twelve essays in Wars within a War explore the internal stresses that posed serious challenges to the viability of the opposing sides in the Civil War as well as some of the ways in which wartime disputes and cultural fissures carried over into the postwar years and beyond...read more

Product Description: "The Civil War was the most dramatic, violent, and fateful experience in American history. . . . Little wonder that the Civil War had a profound impact that has echoed down the generations and remains undiminished today. That impact helps explain why at least 50,000 books and pamphlets ...read more

Product Description: Crucible of the Civil War offers an illuminating portrait of the state’s wartime economic, political, and social institutions. Weighing in on contentious issues within established scholarship while also breaking ground in areas long neglected by scholars, the contributors examine such concerns as the war’s effect on slavery in the state, the wartime intersection of race and religion, and the development of Confederate social networks...read more

Product Description: Generally regarded as the most important of the Civil War campaigns conducted in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, that of 1864 lasted more than four months and claimed more than 25,000 casualties. The armies of Philip H. Sheridan and Jubal A...read more

Product Description: A variety of important but lesser-known dimensions of the Chancellorsville campaign of spring 1863 are explored in this collection of eight original essays. Departing from the traditional focus on generalship and tactics, the contributors address the campaign's broad context and implications and revisit specific battlefield episodes that have in the past been poorly understood...read more

Product Description: The two reporters, A.J.L. Fremantle and Whitelaw Reid, one traveling with the Union army and the other with the Confederates, are the authors of these two magnificent firsthand accounts of the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, the pivotal action of the Civil War...read more

Product Description: More than 60,000 books have been published on the Civil War. Most Americans, though, get their ideas about the war--why it was fought, what was won, what was lost--from movies, television, and other popular media. Renowned Civil War historian Gary Gallagher guides readers through the stories told in recent film and art, showing how they have both reflected and influenced the political, social, and racial currents of their times...read more

Product Description: 'It is well this is so terrible! We should grow too fond of it,' said General Robert E. Lee as he watched his troops repulse the Union attack at Fredericksburg on 13 December 1863.This collection of seven original essays by leading Civil War historians reinterprets the bloody Fredericksburg campaign and places it within a broader social and political context...read more

Product Description: The Maryland campaign of September 1862 ranks among the most important military operations of the American Civil War. Crucial political, diplomatic, and military issues were at stake as Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan maneuvered and fought in the western part of the state...read more

Product Description: The two reporters, one traveling with the Union army and the other with the Confederates, knew that something important was afoot. But on the eve of the battle they could not have known that in the next days the history of the United States would be decided...read more

Product Description: In the spring of 1864, in the vast Virginia scrub forest known as the Wilderness, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee first met in battle. The Wilderness campaign of May 5-6 initiated an epic confrontation between these two Civil War commanders—one that would finally end, eleven months later, with Lee's surrender at Appomattox...read more

Product Description: Was Robert E. Lee a gifted soldier whose only weaknesses lay in the depth of his loyalty to his troops, affection for his lieutenants, and dedication to the cause of the Confederacy? Or was he an ineffective leader and poor tactician whose reputation was drastically inflated by early biographers and Lost Cause apologists? These divergent characterizations represent the poles between which scholarly and popular opinion on Lee has swung over time...read more

Organized into twelve thematic sections, a visual history of the American Civil War presents more than five hundred illustrations from the Library of Congress, including an array of period drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts; iconic photography by Mathew Brady and others; important manuscripts; political and theatrical posters; memoirs and journal excerpts; and other ephemera and memorabilia. History Channel.

Product Description: Two well-known historians of the American Civil War collect new essays on eight major military commanders of the Confederacy. Serving as both character studies and strategic analyses, these lively pieces come from some of the preeminent names in Civil War history, including William C...read more

Product Description: Historical images of Robert E. Lee and his lieutenants have been shaped to a remarkable degree by former Confederates, who in reminiscences and other writings constructed the Lost Cause interpretation of the conflict. They portrayed Lee as a perfect Christian warrior, Stonewall Jackson as his peerless right arm, and the Army of Northern Virginia as the backbone of Confederate resistance...read more

A guide to the top sites dedicated to the Civil War found on the Internet.

Product Description: Undoubtedly the most cataclysmic military struggle of the late nineteenth century, the American Civil War spanned four bloody years of fighting in which over 620,000 American soldiers and sailors lost their lives. From its outbreak at Fort Sumter, South Carolina in April 1861 until its conclusion at the Appotomax Court House, more than 10,000 battles, engagements and skirmishes were recorded across the length and breadth of America...read more