In this thrillingly readable piece of historical writing, Bruce Catton describes the forces which combined to drive the United States apart.Opening with the Democratic Party's Charleston Convention in 1860 and the split which ended with two Democratic candidates for the Presidency; the Republic Convention and the campaign which ended in Lincoln's victory, the book takes its inevitable course to the wave of secession in the South, the firing of the first shots at Fort Sumter, the aligning of forces in the North and South, ending with the first battle of the war at Bull Run. Catton superbly conveys the way the country first drifted, and then was swept, into war. We see Lincoln and Jefferson Davis pitted against each other and the famous generals, Robert E. Lee, fighting for the Confederacy and William T.Sherman lining up with the North.'...a major work by a major writer, a superb re-creation of the twelve crucial months that opened the Civil War' New York Times