This searing story of slavery and freedom in the Chesapeake by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reveals the pivot in the nation’s path between the founding and civil war.

Robert E. Lee is widely recognized as the greatest commander in U.S. History. But why? In his new book, Ron Field, a member of the DC-based Company of Military Historians, seeks to convey the character, outlook, bearing, leadership style, and military brilliance of the “Old Man.” His narrative builds to Lee’s “hour of destiny” during the Civil War where Lee outshined McClellan during the Seven Days, Pope at Second Manassas, Burnside at Fredericksburg, and Hooker at Chancellorsville.

The Civil War was fought mostly by men, but the war could not have been won without the courageous effort of women. During the war, women served as spies and nurses. Some disguised themselves as men to become soldiers.

The period after the Civil War was a troubled time for the United States. Known as Reconstruction, the South, which had fought for its independence, was bitter. Former slaves were freed, made citizens, and granted the right to vote, but still faced terrible discrimination.

An illuminating study of the American struggle to comprehend the meaning and practicalities of death in the face of the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War.
During the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today’s population would be six million. This Republic of Suffering explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. The eminent historian Drew Gilpin Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and its understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.