Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The third edition incorporates recent scholarship and addresses renewed areas of interest in the Civil War/Reconstruction era including the motivations and experiences of common soldiers and the role of women in the war effort.

James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1962.

Part One: The Coming of War

Chapter One: American Modernization, 1800-1860

Chapter Two: The Antebellum South

Chapter Three: The Ideological Conflict over Slavery

Chapter Four: Texas, Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850

Chapter Five: Filibusters, Fugitives, and Nativists

Chapter Six: Kansas and the Rise of the Republican Party

Chapter Seven: The Deepening Crisis, 1857-1859

Chapter Eight: The Critical Year, 1859-1860

Chapter Nine: Secession and the Coming of War

Part Two: The Civil War

Chapter Ten: A Brothers’ War: The Upper South

Chapter Eleven: Mobilizing for War

Chapter Twelve: The Balance Sheet of War

Chapter Thirteen: The War at Home and Abroad

Chapter Fourteen: The Springtime of Northern Hope

Chapter Fifteen: Jackson and Lee Strike Back

Chapter Sixteen: Slavery and the War: Northern Politics, 1861-1862

Chapter Seventeen: The First Turning Point: Antietam and Emancipation

Chapter Eighteen: The Winter of Northern Discontent

Chapter Nineteen: The Second Turning Point: Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga

Chapter Twenty: War Issues and Politics in 1863

Chapter Twenty-One: Behind the Lines

Chapter Twenty-Two: Wartime Reconstruction and the Freedpeople

Chapter Twenty-Three: Military Stalemate, 1864

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Third Turning Point: The Election of 1864

Chapter Twenty-Five: The End of the Confederacy

Part Three: Reconstruction

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Problems of Peace

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Origins of “Radical Reconstruction”

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Reconstruction and the Crisis of Impeachment

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The First Grant Administration

Chapter Thirty: The Southern Question, 1869-1872

Chapter Thirty-One: Social and Economic Reconstruction

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Retreat from Reconstruction

Chapter Thirty-Three: The New SouthEpilogue

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Ordeal by Fire : The Civil War and Reconstruction