Prologue: America's Crisis -- 1. Slavery and States' Rights in the Early Republic -- 2. The Political Economy of Slavery and Secession -- 3. The Slave Power Seeks Foreign Conquest -- 4. Emergence of the Republican Party -- 5. The Confederate States of America -- 6. Mobilizing for Conflict -- 7. The Military Struggle -- 8. The War to Abolish Slavery? -- 9. Republican Neo-Mercantilism Versus Confederate War Socialism -- 10. Dissent and Disaffection - North and South -- 11. The Ravages of Total War -- 12. The Politics of Reconstruction -- 13. American Society Transformed -- Epilogue: America's Turning Point.
Summary
This book combines a sweeping narrative history of the Civil War with a bold new look at the war's significance for American society. Professor Hummel sees the Civil War as America's turning point: simultaneously the culmination and repudiation of the American revolution. A unique feature of the book is the bibliographical essays which follow every chapter. Here the author surveys the literature and points out where his own interpretation fits into the continuing clash of viewpoints which informs historical debate on the Civil War.
This a novel set in 1863 in the Susquehanna River towns of Columbia on the east side and Wrightsville on the west side of a bridge that connected the two. The main event at that time was the burning of that bridge to prevent a Confederate army from entering eastern Pennsylvania . Another main event in the area at that time was the active protection of escaped slaves in the Underground Railroad. Both of these causes are addressed in the novel. The author states: "The main characters of the novel are fictional , but they became involved with persons who actually lived during the period, as well as with incidents which have been recorded in our country's history, several of them indelibly."
