The Civil War is the greatest trauma ever experienced by the American
nation, a four-year paroxysm of violence that left in its wake more than
600,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees, and the destruction (in
modern dollars) of more than $700 billion in property. The war also
sparked some of the most heroic moments in American history and
enshrined a galaxy of American heroes. Above all, it permanently ended
the practice of slavery and proved, in an age of resurgent monarchies,
that a liberal democracy could survive the most frightful of challenges.
In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen
C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era,
covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics,
religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. And unlike other
surveys of the Civil War era, it extends the reader's vista to include
the postwar Reconstruction period and discusses the modern-day legacy of
the Civil War in American literature and popular culture. Guelzo also
puts the conflict in a global perspective, underscoring Americans' acute
sense of the vulnerability of their republic in a world of monarchies.
He examines the strategy, the tactics, and especially the logistics of
the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on
emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and
international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.
Written by a leading authority on our nation's most searing crisis,
Fateful Lightning offers a vivid and original account of an event
whose echoes continue with Americans to this day.
