I hold that the union of these States is perpetual.… Physically speaking we cannot separate.… The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the Government.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1918, Rhodes’s chronicle of the War Between the States both provides the general reader with a clearly written description of the events of four bloody years as well as reveals the self-educated author’s belief in the war’s cause as the evil of slavery.