Table of Contents

Note: Each chapter concludes with Further Reading.
1. PERSPECTIVES ON THE SECTIONAL CONFLICT.
Essays.
James M. McPherson, "The Second American Revolution," Hayes Historical Journal, Spring 1992. Drew Gilpin Faust, "We Should Grow Too Fond of It: Why We Love the Civil War," Civil War History, December 2004, pp.368-83. LeeAnn Whites, "The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender," in Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, eds., Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (Oxford University Press,1992), pp.3-21. Edward L. Ayers, "The First Occupation," The New York Times Magazine, May 29, 2005 (entire article).
2. THE SLAVE SOUTH.
Documents.
1. Frederick Law Olmsted Observes Southern Lassitude, 1854. 2. Hinton Rowan Helper Exposes Southern Backwardness, 1857. 3. James Henry Hammond Claims Southern Cultural Superiority, 1845. 4. George Fitzhugh Praises Southern Society, 1854. 5. J.D.B. DeBow Explains Why Nonslaveholders Should Support Slavery, 1860. 6. An Abolitionist Journal Condemns Slavery and the Slave Trade, September 1837. 7. N.L. Rice, a Proslavery Minister, Blames Abolitionists for the Slave Trade, October 1845.
Essays.
James M. McPherson, "Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question," Civil War History, September 1983, pp.230-44. Steven Deyle, The Domestic Slave Trade as Slavery's Lifeblood.
3. THE IMPENDING CRISIS.
Documents.
1. The Independent Democrats Protest the Kansas-Nebraska Act, January 1854. 2. Stephen Douglas of Illinois Explains the Objectives of His Bill, February 1854. 3. Senator Robert Toombs of Georgia Insists on Congress's Responsibility to Protect Slavery in the Territories, January 1856. 4. Senator William Henry Seward of New York Warns of an Irrepressible Conflict, October 1858. 5. Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi Denounces the Federal Government for Failing to Protect the South, December 1859.
Essays.
William E. Gienapp, "The Republican Party and the Slave Power," in Robert H. Abzug and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds., New Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986) pp. 51-75. Don E. Fehrenbacher, "Kansas, Republicanism, and the Crisis of the Union," in Fehrenbacher, The South and Three Sectional Crises (Louisiana State University Press, 1980), pp. 45-65.
4. SECTIONALISM AND SECESSION.
Documents.
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson Condemns the South for the Assault on Charles Sumner, February 1857. 2. Abraham Lincoln Addresses the Issue of Sectionalism, February 1860. 3. South Carolina Declares and Justifies Its Secession, December 1860. 4. Mississippi's Secession Commissioner Urges Georgia to Secede, December 1860. 5. Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens Identifies "The Cornerstone of the Confederacy," March 1861.
Essays.
Susan-Mary Grant, "When Is a Nation Not a Nation?: The Crisis of American Nationality," in Grant, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (University Press of Kansas, 2000), pp.130-52. Manisha Sinha, "Revolution or Counterrevolution?: The Political Ideology of Secession in Antebellum South Carolina," Civil War History, September 2000, pp.205-26.
5. GENERALS AND CAMPAIGNS: HOW THEY FOUGHT.
Documents.
1. George B. McClelland Gives President Lincoln a Lesson in Grand Strategy, July 1862. 2. General Robert E. Lee Takes the Offensive, September 1862. 3. General E. Porter Alexander, C.S.A., Assesses Lea and McClellan at Antietam, September 1862. 4. General Grant Transmits His Plan for the Overland Campaign, April 1864. 5. Grant Recalls His Thoughts on the Eve of the Overland Campaign, 1886. 6. General William T. Sherman Explains How the War Has Changed, September 1864. 7. General Grant Reports His Assignment Accomplished, July 1865.
Essays.
Gary W. Gallagher, "A Civil War Watershed: The 1862 Richmond Campaign in Perspective," in Gary Gallagher, ed., The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula and the Seven Days (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000) pp. 2-23. Mark Grimsl

About the Author

Michael Perman is Professor of History and Research Professor in the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. from Oxford University and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation adviser was the late John Hope Franklin. He has published three books on the late nineteenth century South: REUNION WITHOUT COMPROMISE: THE SOUTH AND RECONSTRUCTION, 1865-1868 (1973); THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION: SOUTHERN POLITICS, 1869-1879 (1984), which won three book prizes; and STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY: DISFRANCHISEMENT IN THE SOUTH, 1888-1908 (2001). He has also written EMANCIPATION AND RECONSTRUCTION (2003) and, more recently, PURSUIT OF UNITY: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH (2010). Perman was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979-80 and was appointed the John Adams Distinguished Professor of American History at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 2002-2003. In 2007, he gave the 69th Series of the Fleming Lectures in Southern History, soon to be published by Louisiana State University Press. Amy Murrell Taylor is Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her B.A. from Duke University (1993) and her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia (2001), where she worked with the Virginia Center for Digital History and served as a project manager for the VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: TWO COMMUNITIES IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, a digital archive. Taylor has written THE DIVIDED FAMILY IN CIVIL WAR AMERICA (2005), a social and cultural study that explores how families coped with the war’s intrusion into their private lives. She has also contributed chapters to Joan Cashin, ed., THE WAR WAS YOU AND ME (2002) and Catherine Clinton, ed., SOUTHERN FAMILIES AT WAR (2000). Taylor served as a production and research assistant for the PBS series, THE RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW. The American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities have supported her research. She is now studying the social history of emancipation, focusing on slave runaways and refugee camps. In 2007, she won an excellence-in-teaching award at her university.