The Civil War Reader

From blood-stained battlefields to smoke-filled antechambers of political power-brokers, 1862 was a year of tumultuous events in America. Flush from its victories of the previous year, the Confederacy stood poised and powerful -- tantalizingly close to sundering the shackles of the Union and establishing itself as a new and independent nation-state on the North American continent. The battles, political events, personalities, and innovative weapons of war are re-examined, and often illuminated with new analysis and information, by some of America's foremost historians and scholars including: James M. McPherson ? Stephen W. Sears ? Tom Wicker ? Geoffrey Perret ? and many more.