North and South divide -- Will there be a war? -- Improvised armies -- Running the war -- The military geography of the Civil War -- The life of the soldier -- Plans -- McClellan takes command -- The war in middle America -- Lee's war in the East, Grant's war in the West -- Chancellorsville and Gettysburg -- Vicksburg -- Cutting the Chattanooga-Atlanta link -- The overland campaign and the fall of Richmond -- Breaking into the South -- The battle off Cherbourg and the Civil War at sea -- Black soldiers -- The home fronts -- Walt Whitman and wounds -- Civil War generalship -- Civl War battle -- Could the South have survived? -- The end of the war

Analyzes many puzzling aspects of the Civil War, from its mismatched sides to the absence of decisive outcomes for dozens of skirmishes, and offers insight into the war's psychology, ideology, and economics while discussing the pivotal roles of leadership and geography