SERIES FOREWORD
“Like Ol’ Man River,” the distinguished Civil War historian Peter J. Parish wrote in
1998, “Civil War historiography just keeps rolling along. It changes course occasion-
ally, leaving behind bayous of stagnant argument, while it carves out new lines of
inquiry and debate.”
Since Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s men stacked their guns at Appomat-
tox Court House in April 1865, historians and partisans have been fi ghting a war of
words over the causes, battles, results, and broad meaning of the internecine con-
fl ict that cost more than 620,000 American lives. Writers have contributed between
50,000 and 60,000 books and pamphlets on the topic. Viewed in terms of defi ning
American freedom and nationalism, western expansion and economic development,
the Civil War quite literally launched modern America. “Th e Civil War,” Kentucky
poet, novelist, and literary critic Robert Penn Warren explained, “is for the American
imagination, the great single event of our history. Without too much wrenching, it
may, in fact, be said to be American history.”
Th e books in Praeger’s Refl ections on the Civil War Era series examine pivotal
aspects of the American Civil War. Topics range from examinations of military
campaigns and local conditions to analyses of institutional, intellectual, and social
history. Questions of class, gender, and race run through each volume in the series.
Authors, veteran experts in their respective fi elds, provide concise, informed, readable
