The agony and anguish of the War Between the States affected all aspects of American life. Many quarters suffered, but one in particular seemed to prosper in the postwar aftermath: the publishing industry. Though the success of Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S. Grant (as published by Mark Twain) is a clear milestone in publishing's history of bestsellers, it was only one of many highly successful Civil War memoirs penned and published by veterans in the postwar years.

Never before in America had such a plethora of eyewitness accounts of a war existed, nor so many by those in a position of command.

Drawing on the best of these accounts, most of them long out of print, Commanding Voices of Blue & Gray presents in a single volume the personal words of these leaders and provides an overview of the command experience in the Civil War.

Selections include:

General William Tecumseh Sherman on his infamous march through Georgia

General George B. McClellan on the battle of Antietam and the legendary lost order that should have tipped him off to Lee's plans

General George Armstrong Custer's experience of going straight from studying at West Point to the Battlefield

General (CSA) James Longstreet on serving under Robert E. Lee

General (CSA) G. Moxley Sorrel on serving under General James Longstreet

Major (CSA) J. S. Mosby on the South's guerrilla campaign

General (CSA) Jubal Early's memoir of the last year of the war