Between the first shots fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, the nation was irrevocably changed, as were the lives of the soldiers and civilians who lived through the war. This is an extraordinary collection of stories about that epochal conflict, bringing the victories and defeats, the valor and the heartbreak, alive with personal intensity.

Includes entries by:

Ambrose Bierce

Stephan Crane

Mark Twain

Abraham Lincoln

Ulysses S. Grant

Walt Whitman

Frederick L. Hitchcock

Louisa May Alcott

Carlton McCarthy

Abner Doubleday

Theodore Roosevelt

and many others.