Frank E. Vandiver

Introduction, p. 3
No war is simple or uncomplicated, certainly not the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865. There were encounters involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers and irregulars, and the war spread across the American continent from Maine to California, Florida to Wyoming, even into Canada. More than a million men were killed or wounded or died of disease. . . . Costs went far beyond battles, treasure beyond belief poured into the war, and a terrible process of change created a different Union from the wreckage of the old.
How can such a maelstrom be encompassed in a mere 1001 entries? The best way is to discuss the physical and human geography of the sides that faced each other in 1861, see how the governments were organized, and indicate the people, events, and items that came to the fore during each year of the war. . . .
[entry 1] The election of Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, a “Black” Republican, to the presidency presented the possibility of fundamental changes to Southern rights and causes. Lincoln’s party threatened the continuation of slavery, but that alone did not lead to secession. . . .

Afterword, p. 262 [entry 1001] The South did not lose because of these lessons, nor did it lose because it abandoned hope. It lost because it learned war too well. It mobilized, organized, built factories and engines and cannon and guns, lived on soft money, on the illusion of King Cotton, until it had sent most of its men, its treasure, to the cold altar of sacrifice—and there was nothing more to send.