Why the Civil War came

Oxford University Press

1996

xvii, 253 p.

Bibliogr.: p. 217–253

0195079418

"And the war came"? : Abraham Lincoln and the question of individual responsibility / Gabor S. Boritt. "Little women" who helped make this great war / Glenna Matthews. They knew what time it was : African-Americans / David W. Blight. The crisis of American democracy : the political system and the coming of the Civil War / William E. Gienapp. The divided south, democracy's limitations, and the causes of the peculiarly North American Civil War / William W. Freehling. "Freedom and law must die ere they sever" : the North / Mark Wahlgren Summers. Fort Sumter : at last the war / Charles Royster.

Why the Civil War Came brings a talented chorus of voices together to recapture the feel of a very different time and place, helping the reader to grasp more fully the commencement of our bloodiest war. From William W. Freehling's discussion of the peculiarities of North American slavery to Charles Royster's disturbing piece on the combatants' savage readiness to fight, the contributors bring to life the climate of a country on the brink of disaster. Mark Summers, for instance, depicts the tragically jubilant first weeks of Northern recruitment, when Americans on both sides were as yet unaware of the hellish slaughter that awaited them. Glenna Matthews underscores the important war-catalyzing role played by extraordinary public women, who proved that neither side of the Mason-Dixon line was as patriarchal as is thought. David Blight reveals an African-American world that "knew what time it was," and welcomed war. And Gabor Boritt examines the struggle's central figure, Lincoln himself, illuminating in the years leading up to the war a blindness on the future president's part, an unwillingness to confront the looming calamity that was about to smash the nation asunder. William E. Gienapp notes perhaps the most unsettling fact about the Civil War, that democratic institutions could not resolve the slavery issue without resorting to violence on an epic scale. With gripping detail, Why the Civil War Came takes readers back to a country fraught with bitterness, confusion, and hatred – a country ripe for a war of unprecedented bloodshed - to show why democracy failed, and violence reigned.

United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Causes

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