The Divided Union

Forward to Sumter tells the story of the background to the War (1861-65), its causes, particularly the impact of slavery: how North and South in the United States had been evolving into two separate societies and cultures, such that some form of conflict between them was perhaps inevitable.

Bloody Stalemate deals with the early skirmishes and how the South fails to exploit its initial victory at Manassas, the North's decisive victory at Shiloh, the Battle of Antietam where more Americans died in a single day than on any field of battle before or since and concludes with President Lincoln's first Emancipation Proclamation.