1863: The Rebirth of a Nation

On the first day of 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. At that time, the Union was pondering the very real possibility of gloomy defeat in the wake of successive Confederate battlefield victories. But by year's end, Grant and Sherman had won resounding victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga, and the North, its industrial superiority clearly evident, was increasingly confident of victory. In this fast-paced, episodic account of the pivotal year, Stevens (Hoover Dam) paints engaging portraits of the major personalities who either drove or symbolized events. In addition to political and military leaders such as Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Lee and Grant, he devotes time to lesser figures: Robert Gould Shaw (the white commander of the 54th Massachusetts, the first all-black regiment) and other idealistic aristocrats of both the North and the South; cynical young capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie (""too busy looking after his own financial affairs to pay much attention to the war,"" he took advantage of a common practice available to the wealthy and paid a substitute to answer his draft notice); and great writers and moral leaders such as Whitman, Louisa May Alcott and Emerson. Making good use of personal letters, official documents and dramatic photographs, Stevens moves quickly from one person to another, from the North to the South, from the trenches to the home front. The result is an energetic, gripping popular history from which readers will gain a panoramic view of this historical turning point. Illustrations. (Apr.)