Summary
For four years, the people of the United States fought against one another in a civil war that left 620,000 men dead. More Americans died during this bloody 19th-century conflict than in all other American wars combined. The soldiers who fought, as well as those who supported them, did so for reasons that were often personal and individualistic. Yet for both the North and the South, the war was about America's future—whether the United States would continue to be divided "half slave and half free." In the decades prior to the outbreak of war, Northerners and Southerners had clashed over the expansion of slavery into the western territories, an extended conflict that ultimately had to be decided on the battlefield. In the end, the Civil War decided those arguments, even as, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, it established "a new birth of freedom." The Civil War Era: 1851-1865 covers this tumultuous time, exploring the catalysts for the bloodiest conflict in America's history.
Specifications
Full-color and black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps. Boxed insets. Glossary. Chronology and timeline. Bibliography. Further resources. Index.
About the Author(s)
Tim McNeese is associate professor of history at York College in York, Nebraska. He earned degrees from York College, Harding University, and Missouri State University. McNeese has published more than 100 books and educational materials. His writing has earned him a citation in the library reference work Contemporary Authors and multiple citations in Best Books for Young Teen Readers. In 2006, McNeese appeared on the History Channel program Risk Takers/History Makers: John Wesley Powell and the Grand Canyon. He was a faculty member at the 2006 Tony Hillerman Mystery Writers Conference in Albuquerque.