List of Maps - Preface - List of Abbreviations p. xvii 1. Slavery and the American Republic - Nationalism, Democracy and Republicanism - The Slavery Issue - The Power of Slaveowners - The Crisis over the Extension of Slavery - Compromise and its Consequences - 2. Political Crisis and the Resort to War - The Kansas Nebraska Act - Republicanism and the Slave Power - The Rise of the Secessionists - Lincoln's Election and the Secession of the Deep South - The North's War for the Union - The Sumter Crisis - First Bull Run - 3. The Failure of Limited War, 1861-1862 - The Military Balance Sheet, 1861 - Strategy and Tactics - The Union Army Advances: December 1861-May 1862 - Confederate Victories in the East: May to September 1862 - Emancipation - 4. Emancipation and Hard War, 1862-1864 - Confederate High Tide: December 1862-July 1863 - Confederate Reversals: Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga - "Hard War" in 1864 - Grant Takes Command - 5. Citizen Soldiers - Life in Civil War Armies - Attitudes and Motivations - 6. The Ordeal of the Confederate Republic - Birth of a Nation-State - Confederate Nationalism and the Southern People - The Strains of War and the Limits of Loyalty - Slavery and the Confederate Cause - 7. The Last Best Hope of Earth: The War for the Union - Organizing Northern Society for War - Partisanship, Democracy and the Limits of Dissent - Reconstruction and Union Politics - The 1864 Election 8. The Magic Word, "Freedom" - The Road to Appomattox - Why the South Lost the War - The Nation "Redeemed" - Unfinished Business - Notes - Guide to Further Reading - Chronology of Key Events - Index.