First published in 1950 and long sought by collectors and historians, South Carolina Goes to War, 1860-1865 stands as the only institutional and political history of the Palmetto State's secession from the Union, entry into the Confederacy, and management of the war effort. Notable for its attention to the precursors of war too often neglected in other studies, the volume devotes half of its chapters to events predating the firing on Fort Sumter and pays significant attention to the Executive Councils of 1861 and 1862.

Chronicles through correspondence the lives and concerns of prominent families in piedmont South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War eras. The 124 letters presented here were written by members of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of Spartanburg County, neighboring planter-class families united by their shared Scots-Irish ancestry and their membership at Nazareth Presbyterian Church. --from publisher description.

The United States' boundaries have expanded over the centuries—and at the same time, Americans' ideas about their country have grown as well. The nation the world knows today was shaped by centuries of thinkers and events. The Civil War brought an end to the terrible practice of slavery—but it also left deep wounds across the United States. As you learn more about this war's conflicts, you will gain a better understanding of what makes America the nation it is today.

This book is a hidden treasure of American Civil War history. If you buy it only for the section titled "A Confederate Girl's Diary," you'll find it worth the price of admission.Yet the collection is so much richer than that. Included are excerpts from the famous diary of Mary Chesnut, close friend of Mrs. Jefferson Davis and much quoted in Ken Burns' great Civil War documentary.The first sections of the book include fascinating details about services women gave to the southern war effort:"A jar of pickles, a contribution of $.50 cents, shirts, wine, and $5.00 from a Jew, who desired me so to acknowledge."The latter half of the book is composed of short memoirs, "A Confederate Girl s Diary" being one of the most entertaining. While the girl is dismissive of all the talk that Sherman will soon be upon them, she continues taking vocal lessons and finishes a new book..."Les Miserables.""A Southern Household During the Years 1860 to 1865" tells what it was like to run a household during war.Coming from the Daughters of the Confederacy, it should not be surprising that this work is by largely unreconstructed Rebel women, but it is fascinating and an important contribution to Civil War literature.

This re-creation of the Civil War weaves together the diaries, letters, recorded words of generals and privates, politicians and homemakers, reporters and historians, poets and spies. Told by the men and women who fought and lived through it, this was the bloodiest civil war the world had yet known. The presentation of these documents shows how these tragic years were actually experienced, how the war remade the Union through a profound social upheaval, and illuminates the deep, devisive issues which tore the United States apart.

W. Scott Poole teaches South Carolina history at the College of Charleston.

Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War chronicles the lives and concerns of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of piedmont South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War eras through 124 letters dated 1853 to 1865. The letters provide valuable firsthand accounts of evolving attitudes toward the war as conveyed between battlefronts and the home front, and they also express rich details about daily life in both environments. As the men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks and write from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas, they describe combat in some of the warâs more significant battles. Though the surviving combatants remain staunch patriots to the Southern cause until the bitter end, readers witness in their letters the waning of initial enthusiasm in the face of the realities of warfare. The corresponding letters from the home front offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through its conclusion.