Includes bibliographical references (p. [489]-505) and index.

In this fascinating book, Davis gives readers everything they "need to know" about the Civil War - and not just the battles. With his deft wit and unconventional style, Davis sorts out the players, the politics, and the key events - Harpers Ferry, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Emancipation, Reconstruction. Drawing on the moving eyewitness accounts of the people who lived through the war, he brings the reader into the world of the ordinary men and women who made history - the human side of the story that the textbooks never tell. Don't Know Much About the Civil War explodes the myths and misconceptions about the war, its causes, and the men who fought on both sides. A brilliant crash course, it vividly brings to life such people as Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, Generals Lee and Grant, and Admiral Farragut, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. It looks behind the battles and the tactics to the astounding human misery the way brought upon a divided nation. Davis also highlights the critical - and often forgotten - roles played by African Americans before and during the war. He tells how American women worked, nursed, and even fought. And he makes readers look at modern America in a whole new light