As the American Civil War recedes into the past, popular fascination continues to rise. Once a matter that chiefly concerned veterans, separately organized North and South, who gathered to refight old battles and to memorialize the heroes and victims of war, the Civil War has gradually become part of a collective heritage. Issues raised by the war, including its causes and consequences, reverberate through contemporary society. Family and community connections with the war exist everywhere, as do battlefields, memorials, and other physical reminders of the conflict. We, as Americans, are fascinated by the sheer magnitude of the war fought over thousands of miles of American soil and resulting in awesome casualties. It was a gigantic national drama enacted by people who seem both contemporary and remote. Here for the first time, leading Civil War scholars gather to sort out the fact and fiction of our collective memories. Contributors include Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark E. Neely, Jr., Alan T. Nolan, John Y. Simon, James I. 'Bud' Robertson, Jr., Gary W. Gallagher, Joseph T. Glatthaar, and Ervin L. Jordan, Jr.

On the eve of the Civil War, more Afircan-Americans lived in Virginia than in any other state- 490,000 slaves and 59,000 free blacks- and they were active participants in the single most dynamic event to shape the American consciousness. Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia is the first comprehensive study of Civil War Afro-Virginian history and culture. Through it we witness every aspect of black life: slave and free; rural and urban; homefront and battlefield; at work on plantations but also in munitions factories in Richmond; as wartime Union spies and as soldiers in the Confederate army.