This volume explores the political and social dimensions of the Civil War in both the North and South. Millions of Americans lived outside the major campaign zones so they experienced secondary exposure to military events through newspaper reporting and letters home from soldiers. Governors and Congressmen assumed a major role in steering the personnel decisions, strategic planning, and methods of fighting, but regular people also played roles in direct military action, as guerrilla fighters, as nurses and doctors, and as military contractors. Chapters investigate a variety of aspects of military leadership and management, including coverage of technology, discipline, finance, the environment, and health and medicine. Chapters also consider the political administration of the war, examining how antebellum disputes over issues such as emancipation and the draft resulted in a shift of partisan dynamics and the ways that people of all stripes took advantage of the flux of war to advance their own interests.
Part I. Causes: 1. The Antebellum war over slavery Stanley Harrold; 2. The election of 1860 Michael Green; 3. Secession and disunion Michael E. Woods; Part II. Managing the War: 4. Strategy, operations, and tactics Donald Stoker and Mark Elam; 5. Union military leadership Ethan S. Rafuse; 6. Confederate military leadership Steven Woodworth; 7. Technology and war Andrew S. Bledsoe; 8. Armies and discipline Lesley J. Gordon; 9. Financing the war David K. Thomson; 10. Guerrilla wars Barton A. Myers; 11. Occupation Joan E. Cashin; 12. Atrocities, retribution, and laws D. H. Dilbeck; 13. Environmental war Lisa M. Brady; 14. Civil war health and medicine Shauna Devine; 15. Prisoners of war Lorien Foote; Part III. The Global War: 16. The Civil War in the Americas Andre M. Fleche; 17. The Civil War in Europe Brian Schoen; Part IV. Politics: 18. Radicals and Republicans J. Matthew Gallman; 19. Northern Democrats Adam I. P. Smith; 20. Confederate politics Paul D. Escott; 21. Lincoln and the war Jonathan W. White; 22. Peace and dissent in the North Jennifer L. Weber; 23. African American political activism Stephen Kantrowitz; 24. Davis and the War John M. Sacher; 25. Peace and dissent in the South David Brown.
