"Absolutely first-rate . . . some of the most perceptive material about the meaning of the Civil War ever published . . . No Civil War library will be complete without this fascinating book"--Omaha World-Herald

"Stimulating reading for those who wish to explore the Civil War beyond the smoke of battle."--Houston Post

"It was not at all a pretty war, Mr. Catton insists, but a grim, no-holds-barred struggle, the first of the world's modern wars. It is this quality of totality that gives it its terrible significance."--New York Times Book Review

"Absolutely first-rate . . . some of the most perceptive material about the meaning of the Civil War ever published . . . No Civil War library will be complete without this fascinating book"--Omaha World-Herald

"No historian, Union or Confederate, has succeeded better than Mr. Catton in describing the real 'feel' of the Civil War, and in recognizing the nature of its appeal for subsequent generations."--Baltimore Evening Sun