From the initial Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, to the devastating loss of life at Shiloh as Ulysses S. Grant led the Union to unexpected victory, to the brilliance of Stonewall Jackson's campaign at Shenandoah, to General Pickett's famous charge at Gettysburg, to the Union's triumph at Appomattox Court House, Fields of Fury details the war that helped shape us as a nation. Also included are personal anecdotes from the soldiers at the battlefront...

Provides excerpts from letters, books, newspaper articles, speeches, and diaries which express various thoughts about the strategies, battles, personalities, and politics of generals during the Civil War.

Provides excerpts from letters, books, newspaper articles, speeches, and diaries which express various thoughts about the plight of southern soldiers during the Civil War.

Excerpts from the diary of William Bircher, a fifteen-year-old Minnesotan who was a drummer during the Civil War. Supplemented by sidebars, activities, and a timeline of the era.

Discusses the sinking of the Sultana, a steamboat that was overloaded with thousands of Union soldiers released from Confederate prisoner-of-war camps and sunk in the Mississippi when its boilers exploded, exploring the question of who was responsible for this disaster.

Explores the science and grisly history of U.S. Civil War medicine, using actual medical cases and first-person accounts by soldiers, doctors, and nurses. The Civil War took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and left countless others with disabling wounds and chronic illnesses. Bullets and artillery shells shattered soldiers' bodies, while microbes and parasites killed twice as many men as did the battles. Yet from this tragic four-year...