The Dogs of War: 1861

US: Oxford University Press, 2011. Hardcover. Like New. In 1861, Americans thought that the war looming on their horizon would be b rief. None foresaw that they were embarking on our nation's worst calamity, a four-year bloodbath that cost the lives of more than half a million peop le. But as eminent Civil War historian Emory Thomas points out in this stim ulating and provocative book, once the dogs of war are unleashed, it is alm ost impossible to rein them in. In The Dogs of War, Thomas highlights the delusions that dominated each sid e's thinking. Lincoln believed that most Southerners loved the Union, and w ould be dragged unwillingly into secession by the planter class. Jefferson Davis could not quite believe that Northern resolve would survive the first battle. Once the Yankees witnessed Southern determination, he hoped, they would acknowledge Confederate independence. These two leaders, in turn, ref lected widely held myths. Thomas weaves his exploration of these misconcept ions into a tense narrative of the months leading up to the war, from the " Great Secession Winter" to a fast-paced account of the Fort Sumter crisis i n 1861. Emory M. Thomas's books demonstrate a breathtaking range of major Civil War scholarship, from The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience and the la ndmark The Confederate Nation, to definitive biographies of Robert E. Lee a nd J.E.B. Stuart. In The Dogs of War, he draws upon his lifetime of study t o offer a new perspective on the outbreak of our national Iliad. Editorial Reviews "Intelligent and engaging. Thomas's musings will remind readers that wars should not be left to either generals or politicians alone. An instructive lesson recommended for a.