After 150 years the Civil War is still our greatest national drama, at once heroic, tragic, and epic-our Iliad, but also our Bible, a story of sin and judgment, suffering and despair, death and resurrection in a "new birth of freedom." Drawn from letters, diaries, speeches, articles, poems, songs, military reports, legal opinions, and memoirs, The Civil War: The First Year gathers over 120 pieces by more than sixty participants to create a unique firsthand narrative of this great historical crisis. Beginning on the eve of Lincoln's election in November 1860 and ending in January 1862 with the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton as secretary of war, this volume presents writing by figures well-known-Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Mary Chesnut, Frederick Douglass, and Lincoln himself among them-and less familiar, like proslavery advocate J.D.B. DeBow, Lieutenants Charles B. Haydon of the 2nd Michigan Infantry and Henry Livermore Abbott of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and plantation mistresses Catherine Edmondston of North Carolina and Kate Stone of Mississippi. Together, the selections provide a powerful sense of the immediacy, uncertainty, and urgency of events as the nation was torn asunder. Includes headnotes, a chronology of events, biographical and explanatory endnotes, full-color hand-drawn endpaper maps, and an index. Companion volumes will gather writings from the second, third, and final years of the conflict.
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54 of 55 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The year 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. To commemorate the event, the Library of America has begun a four-volume series that will offer a year-by-year account of the war drawn from original sources. The first volume of the series has recently been published, covering roughly the first year of the conflict beginning in November, 1860, following the election of Abraham Lincoln, and concluding in January, 1862, when Lincoln replaced Simon Cameron as Secretary of War with Edwin Stanton. Brooks Simpson, Stephen Sears, and Aaron Sheehan-Dean, three distinguished Civil War scholars, selected the texts. They also prepared extensive supplemental information, including a detailed chronology of the war's first year, introductory headnotes for each textual entry, explanatory footnotes, biographies of the authors of each entry, and information on source material. This material helps greatly in understanding the text.
The 800-page volume is arranged in chronological order and covers virtually every important aspect of the war's first year from the perspectives of North and South. The entries are drawn from a broad range of sources, including legal documents, (such as Chief Justice Taney's decision in the habeaus corpus case, "Ex Parte Merriman" and the text of the First Confiscation Act) letters, speeches, military reports, nespaper articles, diaries, memoirs, and more. The book includes about 120 individual entries, many of which are substantial in length, by about 60 different authors. It covers military, political, diplomatic, economic, and personal issues resulting from the war as well as cultural responses -- poems by Melville and Whitman and songs such as "Let my People Go" and "John Brown's Body" are featured.
The selections are by both famous and obscure individuals, with a predominance of the former. For example, Abraham Lincoln is represented by his first Inaugural Address, his message to Congress in Special Session of July 4, 1861, his Annual Message to Congress of December 3, 1861, and be several shorter but crucial papers and letters. Jefferson Davis is represented by his farewell address to the United States Senate, his Inaugural Address of February 18, 1861, and his messages to the Confederate Congress of April and November 1861. Other well-known Civil War participants represented by entries include Frederick Douglass, U.S. Grant,Henry Adams, W.T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, William Seward, and John Fremont, Horace Greeley, and George McClellan. There are two substantial entries by John Ross, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, regarding that Tribe's participation in the war.
The many entries by less familiar people include Sam Mitchell's, an aged former slave, recollections of the Union capture of the Sea Islands of South Cariolina, Union Soldier Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife Sarah of July 14, 1861, in which Ballou expressed his devotion to her in anticipation of what he correctly feared would be his death in battle, a lengthy sermon by a Southern minister, Henry Tucker, on "God in the War" delivered on November 15, 1861, Confederate surgeon Lunsford Yandell's account of the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, in which the Union forces were commanded by U.S. Grant, diary entries by Richmond resident Sally Brock as well as the more familiar Mary Chestnut, and much more.
Some of the early entries in the book which cover the sucession debates in the Southern states were particularly informative. Almost every significant event in the book is covered by more than one entry, allowing the reader to see battles such as Fort Sumner, First Manassass, Belmont, Wilson's Creek, and Ball's Bluff from multiple perspectives. The narrative of the story develops slowly and on multiple fronts, so to speak, as the book proceeds from secession to the futile efforts before the war for compromise, to Fort Sumter and the growth of strong patriotic feelings and enlistments in both North and South. The Battle of First Manassas is the military centerpiece of the volume, and the book includes a map of the battlefield together with multiple entries, including an account by an English observer, William Howard Russell, of the chaotic Union retreat. The conflict between Lincoln and Fremont regarding emancipation of slaves in Missouri is presented in considerable detail, as is George McClellan with his substantial strengths and even more glaring weaknesses. Several entries late in the volume cover the "Trent Affair" in which the Union came dangerously close to war with Great Britain.
Those readers who have a good background knowledge of the Civil War will learn a great deal from reading this book with its extensive source material on the first year of the conflict. For readers lacking prior familiarity with the broad history of the war, this book with its detailed material on basically a single year of the conflict may pose a challenge. The head notes and chronology will ease such a reader along, but the book still may be a struggle. In general, this book will have a stronger appeal to students of the conflict than to newcomers.
The Library of America and the editors of the volume deserve praise and gratitude for this book and for its anticipated sucessor volumes. The volume collects a good deal of source material in one place. It will allow readers to learn about the Civil War and to reflect upon its continued importance to American life. I am looking forward to reading the following volumes in the series.
Robin Friedman
The 800-page volume is arranged in chronological order and covers virtually every important aspect of the war's first year from the perspectives of North and South. The entries are drawn from a broad range of sources, including legal documents, (such as Chief Justice Taney's decision in the habeaus corpus case, "Ex Parte Merriman" and the text of the First Confiscation Act) letters, speeches, military reports, nespaper articles, diaries, memoirs, and more. The book includes about 120 individual entries, many of which are substantial in length, by about 60 different authors. It covers military, political, diplomatic, economic, and personal issues resulting from the war as well as cultural responses -- poems by Melville and Whitman and songs such as "Let my People Go" and "John Brown's Body" are featured.
The selections are by both famous and obscure individuals, with a predominance of the former. For example, Abraham Lincoln is represented by his first Inaugural Address, his message to Congress in Special Session of July 4, 1861, his Annual Message to Congress of December 3, 1861, and be several shorter but crucial papers and letters. Jefferson Davis is represented by his farewell address to the United States Senate, his Inaugural Address of February 18, 1861, and his messages to the Confederate Congress of April and November 1861. Other well-known Civil War participants represented by entries include Frederick Douglass, U.S. Grant,Henry Adams, W.T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, William Seward, and John Fremont, Horace Greeley, and George McClellan. There are two substantial entries by John Ross, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, regarding that Tribe's participation in the war.
The many entries by less familiar people include Sam Mitchell's, an aged former slave, recollections of the Union capture of the Sea Islands of South Cariolina, Union Soldier Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife Sarah of July 14, 1861, in which Ballou expressed his devotion to her in anticipation of what he correctly feared would be his death in battle, a lengthy sermon by a Southern minister, Henry Tucker, on "God in the War" delivered on November 15, 1861, Confederate surgeon Lunsford Yandell's account of the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, in which the Union forces were commanded by U.S. Grant, diary entries by Richmond resident Sally Brock as well as the more familiar Mary Chestnut, and much more.
Some of the early entries in the book which cover the sucession debates in the Southern states were particularly informative. Almost every significant event in the book is covered by more than one entry, allowing the reader to see battles such as Fort Sumner, First Manassass, Belmont, Wilson's Creek, and Ball's Bluff from multiple perspectives. The narrative of the story develops slowly and on multiple fronts, so to speak, as the book proceeds from secession to the futile efforts before the war for compromise, to Fort Sumter and the growth of strong patriotic feelings and enlistments in both North and South. The Battle of First Manassas is the military centerpiece of the volume, and the book includes a map of the battlefield together with multiple entries, including an account by an English observer, William Howard Russell, of the chaotic Union retreat. The conflict between Lincoln and Fremont regarding emancipation of slaves in Missouri is presented in considerable detail, as is George McClellan with his substantial strengths and even more glaring weaknesses. Several entries late in the volume cover the "Trent Affair" in which the Union came dangerously close to war with Great Britain.
Those readers who have a good background knowledge of the Civil War will learn a great deal from reading this book with its extensive source material on the first year of the conflict. For readers lacking prior familiarity with the broad history of the war, this book with its detailed material on basically a single year of the conflict may pose a challenge. The head notes and chronology will ease such a reader along, but the book still may be a struggle. In general, this book will have a stronger appeal to students of the conflict than to newcomers.
The Library of America and the editors of the volume deserve praise and gratitude for this book and for its anticipated sucessor volumes. The volume collects a good deal of source material in one place. It will allow readers to learn about the Civil War and to reflect upon its continued importance to American life. I am looking forward to reading the following volumes in the series.
Robin Friedman
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extraordinary collection of primary source writings that capture the witnesses' voices.
February 3, 2011
Format:Hardcover
The Civil War: The First Year of The Conflict Told by Those Who Lived It Brooks Simpson, Stephen Sears, Sheehan-Dean Aaron (Editors), Library of America, chronology, notes, index, hardcover, 680 pages, $37.50.
An extraordinary collection of primary source writings and essential for Civil War enthusiasts. Nearly 125 selections span the first 14 months of the conflict, November 1860 through December 1861. Contributors include a Confederate surgeon describing the Battle of Belmont Missouri, a Federal 2nd lieutenant describing the Battle of Ball's Bluff Virginia, Sam Huston's anti-secession speech, Alex Stephen's Cornerstone speech to the Confederate Congress, Elizabeth Blair Lee's description of wartime Washington D.C, Sallie Brock's description of wartime inflation in Richmond, and a slave's recollection of the Federal capture of South Carolina's Sea Islands.
Battles, military intrigues, visits to both White Houses, life in wartime camps and cities are set forth in chronological order. The text is enhanced by both brief descriptions of author before the text and more extended descriptions at the rear of the book of the authors. The lack of illustrations and maps in no way detracts of the quality and achievements of the collection. American Civil enthusiasts, such as reenactors and educators, will be turning to this series in order to capture the war's witnesses' voices.
An extraordinary collection of primary source writings and essential for Civil War enthusiasts. Nearly 125 selections span the first 14 months of the conflict, November 1860 through December 1861. Contributors include a Confederate surgeon describing the Battle of Belmont Missouri, a Federal 2nd lieutenant describing the Battle of Ball's Bluff Virginia, Sam Huston's anti-secession speech, Alex Stephen's Cornerstone speech to the Confederate Congress, Elizabeth Blair Lee's description of wartime Washington D.C, Sallie Brock's description of wartime inflation in Richmond, and a slave's recollection of the Federal capture of South Carolina's Sea Islands.
Battles, military intrigues, visits to both White Houses, life in wartime camps and cities are set forth in chronological order. The text is enhanced by both brief descriptions of author before the text and more extended descriptions at the rear of the book of the authors. The lack of illustrations and maps in no way detracts of the quality and achievements of the collection. American Civil enthusiasts, such as reenactors and educators, will be turning to this series in order to capture the war's witnesses' voices.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine collection of primary sources of the Civil War's first year
February 12, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
What a treasure this book is! It contains a series of documents of the Civil War's first year "by those who lived it."The inside front cover displays a map of the United States, with key battles from the first year underlined in red. Among them: Wilson's Creek, Belmont, Port Royal, Rich Mountain and, perhaps most famously, Bull Run. A Preface and Introduction set the table for what follows. As the Preface has it (Page xix): "Selections have been chosen for their historical significance, their literary quality, and their narrative energy, and are printed from the best available sources." But it is the documents themselves that are at the heart of this book. A few illustrations. . .
The first selection is an editorial from the Charleston Mercury, a southern newspaper. It asks the question "What shall the South Carolina legislature do?" To address what the editorial author sees as an effort to extinguish slavery, the words call out for (Page 1) ". . .the ball of revolution [to] be set in motion." The vehicle to address this? A state convention. That essay is followed immediately by notes from a meeting in Springfield Illinois, taken by Lincoln's secretary John Nicolay. At one point, just before the election, Lincoln says that he has tried to reassure the South on numerous occasions, but that it would be futile to continue providing such reassurances. At one point, the notes state that (Page 5): "Having told them all these things ten times already would they believe the eleventh declaration?"
On page 37, Sam Houston's response to a letter by prominent individuals to, in essence, start the process of Texas leaving the Union. Houston was opposed and this poignant response lays out his position. John Nicolay's notes of a December conversation with Lincoln record his response to events in Charleston Harbor. And read the two inaugural addresses--one by Jefferson David (Page 201) and the other by Abraham Lincoln (Page 210), to get a sense of their respective perspectives. On the military front, we read Winfield Scott's message to General George McClellan, in which the commanding general, Scott, lays out his "Anaconda Plan." Pages 504 and 505 record Lincoln's response to the drubbing of the Union forces at Bull Run. The final reading to be mentioned is the January 1862 meeting with Montgomery Meigs in which Lincoln noted that (Page 691) "The bottom is out of the tub," as he discusses what the Union should do next.
This volume closes with a useful chronology (Pages 697 to 706) and biographical notes on key figures from the first year of the Civil War.
A splendid volume! If interested in who was saying what at the time, this is a wonderful resource.
The first selection is an editorial from the Charleston Mercury, a southern newspaper. It asks the question "What shall the South Carolina legislature do?" To address what the editorial author sees as an effort to extinguish slavery, the words call out for (Page 1) ". . .the ball of revolution [to] be set in motion." The vehicle to address this? A state convention. That essay is followed immediately by notes from a meeting in Springfield Illinois, taken by Lincoln's secretary John Nicolay. At one point, just before the election, Lincoln says that he has tried to reassure the South on numerous occasions, but that it would be futile to continue providing such reassurances. At one point, the notes state that (Page 5): "Having told them all these things ten times already would they believe the eleventh declaration?"
On page 37, Sam Houston's response to a letter by prominent individuals to, in essence, start the process of Texas leaving the Union. Houston was opposed and this poignant response lays out his position. John Nicolay's notes of a December conversation with Lincoln record his response to events in Charleston Harbor. And read the two inaugural addresses--one by Jefferson David (Page 201) and the other by Abraham Lincoln (Page 210), to get a sense of their respective perspectives. On the military front, we read Winfield Scott's message to General George McClellan, in which the commanding general, Scott, lays out his "Anaconda Plan." Pages 504 and 505 record Lincoln's response to the drubbing of the Union forces at Bull Run. The final reading to be mentioned is the January 1862 meeting with Montgomery Meigs in which Lincoln noted that (Page 691) "The bottom is out of the tub," as he discusses what the Union should do next.
This volume closes with a useful chronology (Pages 697 to 706) and biographical notes on key figures from the first year of the Civil War.
A splendid volume! If interested in who was saying what at the time, this is a wonderful resource.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful stories
These are stories of the war as it happened and as seen by those living it. Highly recommended if you want to see the Civil War through the eyes of those who were there.
Published 1 month ago by R. David Stamm
5.0 out of 5 stars
I understand so much more now
This was so revealing in that it put me in the time where the people didn't know how it was going to turn out. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Joseph Albiani
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent selection of primary source material from 1860/61
Short on time, so I'll be as succinct as possible. Hopefully I will say something that has not already been said.
1. Read more
1. Read more
Published on May 18, 2011 by A. Orth
5.0 out of 5 stars
In the words of both men and women who were there
Have read accounts of Civil War battles large and small and biographies of both leaders and spear carriers for years, visited all the battlegrounds located here in the east and... Read more
Published on April 28, 2011 by Phil Graziano
5.0 out of 5 stars
Civil War by those who lived it!
This is the first of a series of books with primary sources on the Civil War.
If all of them are of this quality it will be an excellent resource for American History... Read more
If all of them are of this quality it will be an excellent resource for American History... Read more
Published on April 22, 2011 by E. Preston
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Civil War - The First Year
Excellent history from those who lived the period
and wrote about it from both sides.
Sam Houston's plea to keep Texas in the Union
is very moving and from the... Read more
and wrote about it from both sides.
Sam Houston's plea to keep Texas in the Union
is very moving and from the... Read more
Published on April 16, 2011 by William D
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like Watching it Unfold Before Your Eyes
I really love this book. Physically, it is a well-made edition with a cloth binding that lays flat, and even comes with an attached fabric bookmark. Read more
Published on April 11, 2011 by S. Tortorice
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not for the Casual Reader
I found this book to be very dry and difficult to read. Seems more suited to a Civil War student for research purposes. It is a beautiful book, however.
Published on April 10, 2011 by bobbie snodgrass
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read
I love this book. It allows the reader to FEEL the events and thinking of Americans that led us into the Civil War. Well done!
Published on March 30, 2011 by Carol B. Layton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant way to follow the war
The LOA has been scraping the bottom of the barrel lately so this first in a series of 4 is a welcome addition. Read more
Published on March 7, 2011 by S. Henderson
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