The book draws on letters, diaries, recent books and articles in History, but also relies on multi-disciplinary sources in politics and literature, along transnational comparisons to place the events in a broader perspective. The book invites the reader to embark with the soldiers and some civilians on their journey into the murderous events across the nation. The passage began with the heroic cliches that prevailed during the initial organization and embarkation of the armies. However the shock of battle and the weary life in camps brought new images of the war such as a bleak vision seeing the war as a chaotic absurdity, others began to suspect conspiratorial agencies behind the conflict, yet others sought to galvanize their support for the hard road ahead by invoking melodramatic metaphors as a crusade, and means of national redemption and punishment of the adversary. As the fighting intensified after the initial clashes of 1862, some believed that the hard war opened the way for imposing revolutionary changes such as upending the South's social structure providing social, economic and political equality to a new class-the ex-slaves. Finally, there were some who felt the war was a Sophoclean-Greek tragedy because the outcome and nature of the war proved contrary to what they had assumed the struggle would be about and what it would be like.

In this groundbreaking study of what motivated soldiers to enlist and fight in this nation's most bloody conflict, Joseph Allan Frank argues that politics was central to the development of the armies of the North and South: motivating soldiers, molding the organization, defining the qualifications of officers, shaping fighting styles, and framing the nature of relations between the army and society. Frank describes how political considerations motivated the soldiers and inspired the loyalty of the officers and men, assuring military cohesion. He reveals that these stalwart citizen soldiers remarkably remained true to the cause even as esprit de corps and small group bonding diminished, as new recruits replaced old comrades, and as old regiments were consolidated into new ones. His book relies on the letters and diaries of more than a thousand soldiers, with the author using social science categories for identifying politically aware soldiers and then defining and classifying the levels of political socialization.