Despite the massive volume of writing on the American Civil War, one of the fundamental questions about it continues to bedevil us. Why did non slave holders sacrifice so much to build a slave republic? Non slave holders commitment was not marginal; they formed the vast majority of soldiers who fought on behalf of the Confederacy. Nor was slavery a tangential concern to the conflict; the political debate over slavery and its expansion drove the North and South to arms, and the shift to emancipation by the North ensured a desolating war. Though relatively brief in comparison to other nineteenth-century wars, the Civil War generated catastrophic losses for both sides. What facilitated the level of division and destruction witnessed in this war? In what follows, I answer this question by exploring the inspirations that compelled Confederate soldiers into the war and sustained them in the face of horrific losses. Inspirations is not too strong or romantic a word; southern white men felt moved to enlist by a host of personal, familial, communal, religious, and national obligations. Similarly, the decision to reenlist or remain in service was not undertaken lightly. Southern men drew on a variety of motivations when they considered why they needed to resist the Norths efforts to recreate the Union. Understanding how those motivations developed offers insight into what leads human beings to support a war and fight in it.

This directory for those suffering from a mental condition, their families, and professionals lists resources such as organizations, books, websites, and agencies for 27 mental health disorders in addition to pediatric and adolescent conditions. Disorders are first described, with information on symptoms, prevalence, and treatment, followed by a list of related resources, information on them, and contact or publication details. Associations, organizations, agencies, professional support and services, publishers, facilities, resources for clinical management, and pharmaceutical companies are then listed. Included is an article on developments and controversies in mental health by Nada Stotland, a professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago.

Provides activities for students to improve skills in vocabulary, reading, and writing for effective communication.

In the meantime great events were occurring which were in some respects more important in their bearing on the war than battles would have been. In these events the war recognized itself and adapted itself to its conditions. From the beginning the abolitionists had clamorously and ceaselessly demanded of Mr. Lincoln that he should recognize the actual cause of the war by proclaiming freedom for the slaves at the South. There was no doubt in anybody's mind that the war was simply the culmination of that "irrepressible conflict" between the systems and sentiments of free and slave labor which had constituted the burden of the country's history for nearly half a century. If there had been no slavery there would have been no war. It is true that a very large proportion of the Southern people regretted slavery, deprecated its existence, and earnestly desired to be rid of it. It is also true that the great mass of the Southerners were non-slaveholders, and that their fighting was done not for the perpetuation of that institution, in which they had no interest, but in assertion of those reserved rights of the individual states upon the maintenance of which they sincerely believed that the liberty of the people depended. These people desired to take their states out of the Union, not for the sake of slavery, but for the sake of that right of local self-government which they regarded as the fundamental condition of liberty among men.