Product Description

The American Civil War was the largest war of the 19th century - the bloodiest and the most prolonged - and it marked a crossroads in American history. Three million men fought in it and over 600,000 died. This book includes a narrative history of the war, essays on various aspects of the war and extracts from contemporary diaries, letters and newspapers which help to evoke the times, events and people of this period in history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #709693 in Books
• Published on: 1992-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
At 4.30 on 12th April 1861 a cannon trained on Fort Sumter fired the first shot of the American Civil War; when it ended four years later at Appomattox Court House the USA had suffered the bloodiest war of its history, and had been changed forever. The statistics are awe-inspiring; in one day at Antietam more US soldiers lost their lives than in all subsequent conflicts up to D-Day, at Cold Harbor between 5,600 and 7,000 Union men fell, most of them in the first eight minutes. It was a war in which officers who trained and fought shoulder to shoulder - Longstreet and Grant, Sherman and Bragg - suddenly found themselves on opposite sides, a war that tore families apart and touched nearly every home in the country. In a few unremarkable minutes at the dedication of the war cemetery at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech that has lived in the imagination ever since. When, before the war, men said, 'the United States are...', afterwards they said, 'the United States is...'. Above all, it was the war that ended slavery, but which also gave birth to the Ku Klux Klan. This book is lavishly illustrated with extraordinary photographs of the period. Through the words of historians and participants we follow every aspect of the conflict - military, political, strategic and civilian. From the genius of Robert E Lee to the slow incompetence of George McClellan, from the horrors of Andersonville to the sentimental songs sung in camp, this is a vivid and remarkable record of a dramatic period in the history of the United States. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

A rediscovery of the American civil war
The civil war seen through the eyes of the actors of the time before history took over, before the post-humous explanations, theories, and rationalizations.

Very well-written, a real discovery of war in general : what the soldier feels like when aiming at the enemy for the first time, taken over by a machinery he doesn't really understand.

Extraordinary photographic material. Really gripping.

The Civil War is worthy companion to Burns' TV epic....
The Civil War, written by Ken Burns, Ric Burns and historian Geoffrey C. Ward, is the companion volume to the outstanding 1990 documentary series from the Public Broadcasting System. Lavishly illustrated with paintings, photographs and maps, this book tells the dramatic and tragic story of America's bloodiest conflict.

Like the television series from which this project was derived, its narrative is both informative and awe-inspiring. Its prose is lovingly crafted, and one can almost hear the voice of historian-writer David McCullough, who narrated the TV episodes, when reading from any of its five chapters.

"By the summer of 1861, Wilmer McLean had had enough," write the authors in the introduction, The Crossroads of Our Being. "Two great armies were converging on his farm, and what would be the first major battle of the Civil War -- Bull Run, or Manassas as the Confederates called it -- would soon rage across the aging Virginian's farm, a Union shell going so far as to tear through his summer kitchen. Now McLean moved his family away from Manassas, far south and west of Richmond -- out of harm's way, he prayed -- to a dusty crossroads town called Appomatox Court House. And it was there in his living room three and a half years later that Lee surrendered to Grant, and Wilmer McLean could rightfully say, 'The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.' "

Although the hardcover edition is a coffee table sized volume, it is not a terribly long or exhaustive work. There are only five chapters, each one dedicated to a year of the war and followed by an essay by an eminent historian. My personal favorite is the essay "Men at War" by Shelby Foote, whose award winning three volume history of the Civil War is considered by many to be among the best on the subject. More interview than essay, "Men at War" attempts to explain why Civil War battles were so bloody; "It was brutal stuff," Foote explains, "and the reason for the high casualties is really quite simple: the weapons were way ahead of the tactics." Foote also discusses the primitive medical techniques of the time, and has this to say about Lee at Gettysburg: "Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Lee." On the issue of who won the war, Foote says, "I can tell you who lost it -- the South lost the war. But I'm not sure anybody won that war. It's a tragedy."

Other essay writers include Barbara J. Fields, James M. McPherson, Don E. Fehrenbacher and C. Vann Woodward.

The Civil War follows the structure of Ken Burns' documentary, and most of the individuals portrayed in the PBS series (ranging from Presidents Lincoln and Davis to Union soldier Elisha Hunt Rhodes -- who rose from private to colonel during the war -- and Confederate soldier-turned-author Sam Watkins) are wonderfully described in the text.

While definitely not a substitute for the film on which it's based, The Civil War is a fine book and a good one-volume introduction to the worst internal crisis the American people ever faced.