Given its central place in American history, it should come as
no surprise that more books have been written on the Civil War
than on any other aspect of the nation's life. By one estimate,
a complete Civil War bibliography would contain some 70,000
titles. And yet the books keep coming. Given the vast number of
books written about the Civil War, one might wonder what remains
to be said. But in fact the quality of Civil War publications
keeps improving. One reason for this is that historians are
freeing themselves from the shackles of the "Lost Cause" school
of historiography, which until recently shaped the way Americans
interpreted the war. Almost from the moment the conflict ended,
the Lost Cause school towered like a colossus over Civil War
history writing. Former Confederate General Jubal Early, among
others, was instrumental in shaping Northern as well as Southern
perceptions of the war. The works of Douglas Southall Freeman,
the Virginian biographer of Robert E. Lee, represent the epitome
of the Lost C