The Civil War was not only a stunning event in military history; it defined the American people by forcing them
to grapple with the founding principles of the nation. Rachel Seidman brings together an array of primary sources
from the antebellum period, the war, and Reconstruction to provide a well-rounded account of this pivotal era.
Political debates and military developments may occupy the historical foreground, but it is the letters, diary
entries, memoirs, and testimony of blacks, Native Americans, women, children, farmers, and foot soldiers in the
richly textured background that bring the Civil War to life.
Ex-slave Frederick Douglass's abolitionist speeches and writings contrast with Southern magazine editor James DeBow's
defense of the slave system to set the political conflict in a national context, while Northern traveler Caroline
Seabury's heartbreaking letter about a slave auction and Southern slave mistress Ella Thomas's conflicted diary
entries about her servant Isabella detail the daily brutality of slavery. Confederate general James Longstreet's
report of the Battle of Gettysburg and Union general William Tecumseh Sherman's letter to the leaders of Atlanta
document tactics introduced in the Civil War, while letters between soldiers and their families record the anguish
and the courage on the battlefield and at home. A picture essay entitled "Images of War" graphically
demonstrates the devastation wrought by the war through photography--a new medium in the 1860s that profoundly
changed American attitudes about warfare.
Despite the South's surrender, violence and conflict continued during Reconstruction. The 13th Amendment abolished
slavery, but state-sanctioned Black Codes limited African American freedoms. At the cost of some 620,000 lives,
the battles had ended, but America's struggle with the legacy of slavery was only beginning.