01. Prelude to war
02. The election of 1860
03. The Lower South secedes
04. The crisis at Fort Sumter
05. Opposite sides: 1
06. Opposite sides: 2
Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western Hemisphere had ever seen transformed the small towns, little-known streams, and dark prairies of the American countryside into names we will always remember. During these great battles, the streams ran red with blood and the United States was truly born.
Professor Gary W. Gallagher, a distinguished Civil War historian, extensively details the effects of the Civil War on all Americans. You will learn how armies were recruited, equipped and trained. You will discover the difficult fate of the prisoners. You will discover how soldiers from both sides coped with the rigors of life in the camps, in the countryside and the terror of combat. You will understand how slaves and their fallen masters reacted to the progress of the war. And you will see the desperate price paid by so many families left behind.
Blue and gray, drenched in red
Gettysburg. Anti-tin. Running of the bulls. Shiloh. After absorbing these lectures, the sacred names of Civil War battles will become more than just evocative. You will have a solid understanding of what happened and why.
Although this is not simply a course on Civil War battles and generals, approximately half of the courses are devoted to the strategic and tactical dimensions of military campaigns. We must never forget: the death toll exceeded the combined total of America's wars from the 17th century until the middle of the Vietnam War.
Professor Gallagher's account of the great battles and campaigns is compelling. From Fort Sumter and First Manassas to Sherman's March and Appomattox, Dr. Gallagher clearly highlights complex patterns of events, identifies opportunities lost or taken, and cites memorable testimonies to give you a clear sense of what it was like to be /" at the sharp end of the battlefields of war.
The players: leaders, allies, fools
Extraordinary leaders and incompetent tyrants have served on both sides. Their power to fascinate, inspire or exasperate remains intact. With powerful and revealing portraits, Professor Gallagher brings to life the characters of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson and others. Consider this example from Lesson 12:
/"Stonewall Jackson is one of the great oddball characters of the Civil War and is just a collection of quirks and eccentricities as a person.
/"He was a hypochondriac. He had all kinds of worries about his body. He often raised his right hand in the air because he thought he didn't have a balance of blood in his body, and if he held his right hand up, then the blood would flow and restore balance, as he put it. An interesting notion.
/"He didn't want to eat pepper because he thought it weakened his left leg – not his right leg, just his left leg. He wouldn't let his back touch the back of a chair because he said that it was disrupting his organs, and it was It is important to sit up straight so that the organs are naturally on top of each other.
/"He's a very strange guy. He was in his thirties at the start of the war and about to embark on a campaign that would make him the most famous Confederate military leader./"
At work in the great forces of history
These men – some heroes, some fools – toiled in a typhoon of larger forces. Understanding this dynamic relationship between the battlefield, the home front, and the diplomatic front is absolutely essential if you hope to understand the Civil War.
You will also find revealing explanations of how military events affected crucial political factors, including the morale of the Northern and Confederate peoples, the policies of their governments, and the attitudes of major European powers such as Great Britain and France.
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