The lawyer-historian Alan T. Nolan called the Civil War our "folk epic told over and over again." For more than a hundred years, it has remained a powerful presence in the American imagination.With My Face to the Enemy is one of the most provocative and wide-ranging anthologies on the subject to come along in years. Its illuminating essays examine the war from perspectives that were critical to its outcome - the larger-than-life personalities of its important players and the national strategies and key battle tactics that shaped the four-year-long crisis.
Fought on American soil, pitting brother against brother, friend against friend, freedom against slavery, and states' rights against the principle of union, the Civil War was one of the most critical events in our history. As Robert Cowley reminds us, it was what "finally brought us together as a nation, made us truly a 'union.'"
Edited by Robert Crowley