The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It

The definitive firsthand narrative of the Civil War, in a collector's boxed set

After more than a century and a half the Civil War still holds a central place in American history and self-understanding. It is our greatest national drama, at once heroic, tragic, and epic—our Iliad, but also our Bible, a story of sin and judgment, suffering and despair, death and resurrection in a “new birth of freedom.”

This four-volume Library of America series orchestrates a symphony of firsthand voices to chronicle as never before the full drama of the nation’s most devastating conflict, from Lincoln’s election in 1860 to the Grand Review of the Armies in 1865.

Each volume includes headnotes, a chronology of events, biographical and explanatory endnotes, full-color endpaper maps, and an index. Here is the ultimate gift for anyone interested in the Civil War era.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

BROOKS D. SIMPSON is Professor of History and Humanities at Arizona State University and the author of several books including Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865. STEPHEN W. SEARS is the author of authoritative histories of the Peninsula Campaign and the battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. AARON SHEEHAN-DEAN is Fred C. Frey Chair in Southern Studies at Louisiana State University and the author of Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia and the Concise Historical Atlas of the U.S. Civil War.