In this volume Allan Nevins concludes his definitive history of the American Civil War. There is the bloody grinding-down of Confederate resolve, as the Union Army burns Atlanta, Sherman marches to the sea, Lee fails at Gettysburg, and the slow death grip between two great armies in the Battle of the Wilderness winds down into Appomattox. As these events take center stage, Nevins never forgets the importance of the economic build-up of the North, and the ways the exigencies of war served to create a new concept and new techniques of organization.