This has been called the single best volume on the American Civil War, and I can only agree. McPherson covers 1850 to Appomattox in depth and with style, offering as complete account of the war as anyone could manage. The book takes its time to set the stage, using 200 pages before Fort Sumter to develop an economic and political history of Antebellum America. The balance of powers between North and South was coming under strain from exponential Northern industrialization and westward expansion. Its hard to muster much sympathy for the Southerners: They were hypocritical in their demands towards government power: remonstrating Free States for abolition while demanding universal application of the Fugitive Slave Act, opposing internal infrastructure development while lobbying for Federal support to conquer Cuba, and above all, their policies were grounded in the justification of owning human beings as property. The question of whether a diminishing slave society would set national policy destroyed the Whig party, and ultimately catapulted Abraham Lincoln to the White House with essentially no Southern votes. Rather than lose their privileges, the South seceded and started the war.

We all know it ended, but McPherson drives the narrative with battles, generals, strategy, politics, the home front, and more. As can be expected, the quality of the research is top-notch, drawing from the best academic literature leavened with primary sources (Northern Generals got Biblical at times. I must quote General Sheridan on orders to destroy the Shenandoah Valley, "The people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over war.") As a good historian, McPherson tries to make an argument for contingency, that there were many ways that war could have ended, but aside from an early collapse of 1st Bull Run, it seemed that the North had too great of an industrial advantage, and the South too bent on independence, for this pivotal and cataclysmic period to have ended different. Still, a fantastic history and book, and the best starting point for serious exploration of the period.