The Civil War Told By Those Who Lived It

“The Library of America’s four-volume boxed set The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It is a breathtaking achievement, incorporating letters, diaries, maps, newspaper and magazine articles, military accounts, poems, and excerpts of memoirs, letters and diaries in the living words of those who died or survived, as the publisher puts it, ‘our greatest national drama, at once heroic, tragic, and epic—our Iliad, but also our Bible.’ From South Carolina’s secession (‘the Southern states are now in the crisis of their fate … the ball of revolution [must] be set in motion’) to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to Gen. George McClellan’s letters to his wife (‘the Presdt. is an idiot, the old general [Scott] in his dotage, they cannot or will not see’), this amazing work pulls readers into a time that suddenly lives and breathes. We hear from Kate Stone of Louisiana (‘the sword of Damocles … is suspended over us and there is no escape’), and from Elizabeth Blair Lee of Washington, D.C. (‘Meade has just … ordered the instant death of the recreant … if this had been done by Grant we would have … saved many brave men by punishing the Cowards & preventing their Contagion from spreading’). And we hear from escaped slave and Union soldier Spotswood Rice, whose family was still in bondage (‘Now my dear Children … be assured that I will have you if it cost me my life’). The eloquent immediacy of these voices rings true: These remarkable volumes assure their power, dignity and passion in our own time.”
—Jayne Anne Phillips

“Nearly a century and a half later, with the legacy of the war still very much with us, The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It allows us to return to the conflict anew, to encounter a spectrum of voices and experiences wider and more diverse than has ever been collected in a single series. Ultimately the work places us at the war’s ground level, bringing us closer to the lived experience of Americans who endured this climactic period, providing a portrait more nuanced than could ever be condensed into narrative.”
— Randall Fuller, The Wall Street Journal

“This massive 3,624 page collection … is fascinating and deeply informative. The box set also contains four lovely maps. What a splendid gift this could make for any Civil War devotees.”
— Vick Mickunas, Dayton Daily News

BROOKS D. SIMPSON is Professor of History and Humanities at Arizona State University and the author of several books including Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865.

STEPHEN W. SEARS is the author of authoritative histories of the Peninsula Campaign and the battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg.

AARON SHEEHAN-DEAN is Fred C. Frey Chair in Southern Studies at Louisiana State University and the author of Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia and the Concise Historical Atlas of the U.S. Civil War.

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