The Civil War was not only a war of armies but also a war of ideas, in which Union and Confederacy alike each identified itself as a moral nation with God on its side. In this watershed book, Harry S. Stout measures the gap between those claims and the war’s actual conduct. Ranging from the home front to the the trenches and drawing on a wealth of contemporary documents, Stout explores the lethal mix of propaganda and ideology that came to justify slaughter on and off the battlefield. At a time when our country is once again at war, Upon the Altar of a Nation is a deeply necessary book. 
Copyright 2006, Excellent condition