The Civil War

Almost from its inception as a new nation, it became apparent that the United States was becoming two very different nations. In the North, a seemingly endless influx of cheap immigrant labor combined with the new machines of the Industrial Age to produce a growing economic superpower.

In the South, agriculture remained the life blood, “King Cotton” reigned on his throne, and the Southern agrarian system was supported by Eli Whitney’s ingenious cotton gin and by the sweat and toil of African-American slaves. For decades, American Presidents, Congressmen, judges, newspapermen, and common people struggled to find a way to reconcile the two sections and, in doing so, perhaps increased the terrible toll when war finally came. 

As America added new territories, the key issue became how to admit each to the growing Union. Follow these developments through the 1800s up until the election of Abraham Lincoln as the nation’s 16th President—a choice utterly unacceptable to most Southerners, and a move that would spark the flames of war. 

Contrary to over-confident pre-war predictions by both sides that the war would be relatively quick and bloodless, the Civil War dragged on for four terrible years, reaping as its bitter harvest a generation of young men, the more tragic and ironic because Americans were killing Americans. 

Would ultimate victory be decided by the South’s abundant and brilliant military leadership, or by the North’s greater manpower and economic might? And where was the man President Lincoln needed so badly to give him the victories? This book covers not only the social and economic causes of war, but the important battles, personages, and political maneuvers that changed the war, including Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which changed the North’s ultimate goal from union to abolition of slavery.