Publisher's Synopsis
WILLIAM E. WOODWARD Tears of Madness FOUNDED 1838 G. P. Putnam s Sons New York Foreword IT HAS not been my intention, in writing this book, to set forth, a complete detailed history of the Civil War, for that has already been done many times by competent historians. What I have had in mind, in writing the book, is to reveal the utter and cruel absurdity of the war, and to show h. 6w it could have been avoided without loss to any American citizen. There is hardly anything in modern history that was so abso lutely foolish as this War Between the States. Moreover, even after the war began there were numerous occasions when it might have been ended with great satisfaction to both sides. But these occasions were neglected, or rejected with scorn from both opponents in the desperate, costly, and bloody struggle. W. E. WOODWABJ My husband was forty-six years old before he began to write professionally. Until then he had been in the advertising busi ness and banking. These he had approached in the spirit of highhanded, but concealed comedy, and his favorite character in Shakespeare during that time was, significantly, Falstaff. In the same spirit of lively comedy he wrote his first three books all of which are now, I regret to say, out of print the novels, Bunk, Lottery, and Bread and Circuses. ll MU. J V - Years of Madriess But when the darker clouds of the late twenties, the failure of the Socialist dreams, the depression and tightening of life fell upon us all, he turned to history and biography. These he never approached in his earlier spirit of mockery. He had always been deeply absorbed in American history. He felt about American history, in which his family had par ticipated so much, theway most of us feel about a family album. At the age of eight he encountered his first book on history. This was a volume showing that the South won the War Between the States, and it took the boy quite a spell to realize that this was not necessarily so. In 1928, he turned his attention to the writing of American history, which he approached and treated as the serious work of his life. Naturally the humor and irony that were part of his temperament remained, but with them a great sense of objectivity and responsibility toward his work. When he died in 1950, he left behind him this book about the Civil War. If his major interest had been American history, its high point with him had always been this war. He did not live long enough to make . those final revisions that such work de mands, and I wish to thank Dr. James Rawley, a young his torian, now teaching American history at New York University, for help in these final revisions. HELEN WOODWARD VI Contents i. The Growing Quarrel 3 n. The Slavery Problem 10 m. The Turbulent Fifties 23 iv. The Key States of the Northwest 39 v. Fist Fights in Congress 46 vi. The South Secedes 64 vn. The Civil War Begins 83 vm. Southern Lack of Preparation 95 ix. The Man from Galena 113 x. Deep into the South 129 xi. The Advance against Richmond 144 xn. Splinters of Hate 158 xra. Operations in the West 169 xiv. The War in the East 1862 186 Vll Contents xv. Campaigns of 1863 199 xvi. Resistance to the Draft 210 xvn. Dark Days for the Confederacy 221 xvm. Behind the Lines 238 xix. The War Comes to an End 251 xx. The South in Defeat 269 xxi. The Carpetbag Era 285 Bibliography 297 Index 303 Viii Tears of Madness CHAPTER I The Growing Quarrel WARFARE is thecraziest of all the adventures to which civilized people give their time, their money, and their lives. It is true and sadly so in the long stretch of history, that there are times when men must fight for their very exist ence, such as the wars against savages when not only human life but civilization itself is at stake. But there are not many such periods most wars have so little common sense behind them that a student of life cannot fail to suspect that the human race as a whole is insane...
