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What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War * Chandra Manning * New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007 * x, 356 pp. * $26.95 cloth; $15.95 paper
Chandra Manning, assistant professor of history at Georgetown University, has writ- ten a stimulating history of the Civil War by presenting the views of common Union and Confederate soldiers. This chronological history of the war focuses not on the military officers nor on the politicians but instead on the men who fought on the front lines, men who sacrificed everything to preserve their way of life and their ideals about America.
Divided into six chapters, the book begins with Abraham Lincoln's election in 1 860 and the call to arms after the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter. Chapter rwo looks at events of 1862 and elucidates Union soldiers' desires to maintain their republican form...