American Civil War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection

The American Civil War has never suffered from lack of scholarly attention. This "definitive" resource on a topic of perennial concern efficiently canvasses all the battles, generals, and campaigns in addition to the war's politics, economics, and home front concerns. Prefaced by a pithy four-page overview of the conflict, this set quickly gets down to business. Its 2,648 alphabetically arranged entries range in length from a few paragraphs on peripheral subjects to several pages on more pertinent terms such as the Union blockade of the Confederacy and Union general Ulysses S. Grant. The editors have done a remarkable job of incorporating judicious explanations for general matters such as abolitionism, fortifications, tactics, and women alongside well-chosen specifics including John Wilkes Booth, Ex Parte Milligan, and the Trent Affair. The writing is consistently of high quality; cross-referencing is a breeze with the multitude of "see also" terms at the end of each entry. Appendix material includes an exposition of military ranks, an exceptional glossary, and a 64-page chronology. The final volume consists of 172 related documents, poems, and photographs that add substantially to the user's understanding of the war's historical context. Examples of documents include Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (July 5, 1852), John C. Frémont's "Proclamation Freeing Slaves of Missouri" (August 30, 1861), and Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address (March 4, 1865). Each document opens with a brief introduction, providing the reader with a necessary amount of historical context. Rounding out the set are both a highly useful categorical index and a general index.