The Outbreak of Rebellion: Campaigns of the Civil War Book

Vol. I - Outbreak of the Rebellion
The Scribners History of the Civil War (1883)

This history of the outbreak of the Civil War is unique in presenting it from the perspective of Lincoln's personal secretary. The man was a participant, and on the legal aspects gives some very clear headed arguments.

Nicolay argues that state governors and legislatures had no authority to issue articles of secession. It is not among the defined powers, and on taking office they swore an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States. Nor did any state save Texas put secession to a popular vote.

"Drills, parades, meetings, bonfires, secession harangues, secession cockades, palmetto flags, purchase of fire-arms and powder, singing of the Marseillaise -- there is not room to enumerate the follies to which the general populace, especially of Charleston, devoted their days and nights. There was universal satisfaction: to the conspirators, because their schemes were progressing; to the rabble, because it had a continuous holiday."

This volume covers the causes of the rebellion and the opening struggle to keep Missouri, Tennessee, the western portion of Virginia, and Maryland in the Union. If Maryland had seceded, Washington would have been trapped 60 miles inside the Confederacy. If western Virginia had seceded with the rest of the state, the Baltimore & Ohio railroad from Baltimore to Cincinnati and St Louis would have been severed. The book closes with the battle of First Bull Run.

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This book is part of the Scribners's series of 16 volumes on the Civil War on land and at sea, published in 1882-3. It took congress twenty years to finally allocate funds to have all official documents and battlefield communications assembled and sorted through. Americans could at last have an inside look at who actually said or did what, and when.

While that massive project was still underway, Scribners persuaded highly qualified people - most of them participants -- to write the individual volumes of this history in light of the new information. There is an immediacy to these brisk and readable accounts, making them a very good starting point for someone who wishes to study the conflict. After reading these, you can pick up any modern volume on any aspect of the war with good contextual grasp of how it fits into the overall picture.

Where these volumes fall short is maps, which are essential but inadequate because the publisher wanted to keep the price of each volume to one dollar - within reach of the ordinary person. The publisher advised readers to keep an atlas handy. Fortunately, today you can google "images" for good maps of almost anything under discussion. For the three naval volumes, you can also google images of the specific ships, or types of ships, under discussion.