Author(s): J. Matthew Gallman; Eric Foner (Introduction by)

History

In this moving day-by-day chronicle, we hear the real voices of the soldiers, nurses, farmers, laborers, slaves, and freed people who lived through America's most tragic conflict. This much-needed collection of the letters, diaries, speeches, telegrams, newspaper accounts, and official battlefield reports penned by those people presents an astonishing array of perspectives and conflicting accounts of this very personal war. Hundreds of period black and white images enhance the first-person accounts and help recapture the texture of life at all levels and on both sides of the Civil War.