A Great Civil War

"The crowning achievement of one of America's most distinguished military historians." -- Lincoln Prize jury"Readers will find much to debate in this book -- including... its affirmation that, because of emancipation, 'the Civil War calls for a rethinking of the attitude... that war is always futile, that its rewards never match its cost, that any conflict [must be] immediately decisive and virtually without loss of American lives.'" -- Gary W. Gallagher

Russell F. Weigley (1930-2004) was Professor of History at Temple University and author of numerous books, including The American Way of War and Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944--1945 (both published by IUP). He lived in Philadelphia.

List of Maps

x

Note on Style

xi

INTRODUCTION

To the Gettysburg Address

xvii

Nineteenth-Century Americans at War

xxii

Why Did They Fight?

xxviii

ONE FROM SECESSION TO WAR

The Forts at Charleston

1

(5)

The Anomalous Southern Nation

6

(4)

The South Begins to Mobilize

10

(6)

Fort Sumter: The Crisis Approaches

16

(5)

Fort Sumter: The Bombardment

21

(2)

Militant America

23

(6)

TWO THE BATTLE LINES FORM

Napoleonic War

29

(3)

War in a New Style

32

(4)

Washington Rescued

36

(3)

Contentious Missouri: A Failure for Both Sides

39

(6)

Neutralist Kentucky

45

(4)

Western Virginia: Secession within Secession

49

(6)

Mobilizing the Union

55

(3)

First Bull Run

58

(6)

THREE GROPING FOR STRATEGY AND PURPOSE

The Union: War Aims and Military Frustration

64

(3)

The Confederacy: Recruitment, Finance, Blockade, and War Production

67

(5)

The Invincible U.S. Navy

72

(5)

The Trent Affair and a Paper Tiger

77

(4)

The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War

81

(4)

Three Essays on Abolitionism: Butler, Fremont, Cameron

85

(5)

Lincoln and the Purpose of the War

90

(2)

McClellan and the Purpose of the War

92

(3)

FOUR BLOODSHED AND INDECISION

An Unhappy New Year

95

(1)

Mill Springs

96

(3)

A Western Strategy Takes Shape

99

(2)

Pea Ridge: The Great Battle of the Trans-Mississippi

101

(7)

The Far West 106

Forts Henry and Donelson

108

(7)

Shiloh 111

Western Drumbeat: New Madrid, Island No. 10, the Locomotive General, Corinth, New Orleans

115

(3)

Conscription in the South

118

(1)

The Potomac Front

119

(1)

Battle of Ironclads

120

(2)

McClellan Launches the Peninsula Campaign

122

(4)

Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign

126

(3)

The Climax on the Peninsula: The Seven Days

129

(6)

FIVE THE CONFEDERACY TAKES THE INITIATIVE

Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run

135

(9)

Lee's First Strategic Offensive: The Maryland Campaign

144

(11)

Confederate Riposte in the West: Iuka and Corinth

155

(2)

Confederate Offensive in the West: The Kentucky Campaign

157

(3)

Lee versus McClellan - For the Last Time

160

(3)

SIX OF LIBERTY AND WAR

The End of Slavery: The Sea Islands

163

(5)

The End of Slavery: Congressional Action

168

(2)

The End of Slavery: The President

170

(7)

The Civil Conflict as Full-Fledged War

177

(3)

Liberty Imperiled in the Name of Liberty

180

(5)

The End of Slavery: Arming African Americans

185

(6)

The End of Slavery: The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863

191

(2)

SEVEN ARMIES AND SOCIETIES

Fredericksburg, the Mississippi River Campaign, and Stones River

193

(4)

Lincoln and the Republican Party

197

(4)

Congress Refashions the Union

201

(3)

The Union Pays for Its War

204

(6)

Dissent in War: The Opposition in the North

210

(7)

Inside the Confederacy

217

(6)

Charleston Harbor and Chancellorsville

223

(6)

Lee Turns North

229

(2)

EIGHT THREE SEASONS OF BATTLE

Paying the Toll of War: The Military Draft in the North

231

(5)

The March to Gettysburg

236

(6)

Gettysburg: The Battle

242

(11)

Gettysburg: The Assessment

253

(3)

Vicksburg: Preparations

256

(8)

Vicksburg: Grant's Great Campaign of Maneuver Warfare

264

(6)

The Trans-Mississippi

270

(1)

Chickamauga

271

(6)

Chattanooga

277

(8)

Coda

285

(1)

NINE ON THE HORIZON: THE POSTWAR WORLD

Assuring Freedom

286

(3)

The Burden of Race

289

(4)

From Battlefield to Polling Place (I)

293

(4)

The Beginnings of Reconstruction

297

(6)

The Union: The War, the Economy, and the Society

303

(5)

The Confederacy: Accelerating Breakdown

308

(9)

TEN TRADITIONAL POLITICS AND MODERN WAR

Lincoln Renominated

317

(4)

The Union Army Retained

321

(3)

The Generalship of U.S. Grant

324

(6)

The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor

330

(6)

The Race to Petersburg

336

(2)

The Siege of Petersburg: The First Phase

338

(3)

C.S.S. Alabama

341

(3)

A Catalog of Union Frustration: Red River, Bermuda Hundred, and Washington

344

(3)

The Politics of Military Deadlock

347

(11)

ELEVEN SUSPENSE AND RESOLUTION

Chattanooga to Atlanta

358

(5)

Battling for Atlanta

363

(4)

Mobile Bay and Sheridan's Valley Campaign

367

(11)

From Battlefield to Polling Place (II)

378

(6)

TWELVE THE RELENTLESS WAR

Sheridan's War against the Enemy's Economy

384

(2)

Sherman's War against the Enemy's Economy and Morale

386

(10)

The Death Throes of the Confederacy

396

(6)

The End of Slavery: The Constitutional Assurance

402

(10)

THIRTEEN THE FIRES DIE

Franklin and Nashville

412

(4)

The Campaign of the Carolinas

416

(7)

The Petersburg Campaign, Summer 1864-Spring 1865

423

(11)

To Appomattox

434

(8)

Richmond and Reunion

442

(4)

Durham Station

446

(4)

The Terrible Assassination, and the Terrible War

450

(3)

The Sudden Death of the Confederacy

453

(6)

Notes

459

(103)

Notes on Maps

562

(3)

Bibliography

565

(24)

Index

589

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Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials