James M. McPherson has been called the preeminent living expert on the American Civil War. The war, which took place from 1861 to 1865, pitted the Union Army from the northern United States against the Confederate Army from the southern United States. More than six hundred thousand soldiers died in the Civil War--more than in any other war involving Americans. A prolific writer, McPherson has written and edited numerous books about the Civil War and its aftermath, the Reconstruction, and about President Abraham Lincoln. McPherson is noted for his coverage of African Americans during the mid-nineteenth century, especially their service as soldiers and their efforts to secure their freedom from slavery, and of the abolitionists who worked to obtain equal rights for the freed slaves. He is also a preservationist, working to protect Civil War battlefields and other important sites as well as resource materials in libraries and other places...