The Civil War: The final year

Drawn from letters, diaries, speeches, articles, poems, songs, military reports, legal opinions, and memoirs, this collection brings together over 120 pieces by more than 60 men and women to create a firsthand narrative of the first year of the Civil War. Beginning on the eve of Lincoln's election in 1860 and ending in January 1862 with the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War, the selections provide a sense of the immediacy, uncertainty, and urgency of events as the nation was torn asunder. Includes headnotes, a chronology of events, and biographical and explanatory endnotes.--Adapted from publisher description.