The War for the Union, Vol. 2: War Becomes Revolution, 1862-1863

"WE SHALL," said Abraham Lincoln, "nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth." This was in December, 1862 when he was pleading for compensated emancipation of the slaves, an ideal that was close to his heart. But he might have been speaking of each and every one of the momentous events of the second year of the Civil War. At the time of first publication The Saturday Review hailed Nevins "splendid book" as "an undeniable masterwork."