Americans in the middle decades of the nineteenth century were a people
with boundless energy capable of heroic deeds, monumental achievements,
and tragic errors. In The Civil War Generation, his newest volume in The
Representative Americans series, noted scholar Norman K. Risjord uses
biographical sketches to create a composite portrait of the United
States during and immediately after the Civil War. Risjord begins his
study with Stephen A. Douglas and Frederick Douglass, who provide two
different viewpoints on the events leading to the conflict, while
Harriet Tubman represents a form of social activism during the same
years. Profiles of Stonewall Jackson and William Tecumseh Sherman, as
well as infantryman James Anderson, give the reader an insightful view
of the men fighting the war. Risjord then leads the reader inside both
the Northern and Southern governments as well as the Reconstruction Era
through the eyes of people such as William H. Seward and Thaddeus
Stevens. Looking at the postwar period, Risjord examines the social and
economic changes the conflict wrought, describing the lives of Clara
Barton and Cornelius Vanderbilt. As the nation's eyes turned westward,
the tragic tale of Crazy Horse unfolds, as well as the chronicle of two
of the first scientists to explore the new land. Masterfully written and
eminently readable, The Civil War Generation brings to life one of our
nation's most turbulent decades and will be of great value to students
of the Civil War.
