Really accessible and clear history even for people with no other background in Civil War history. I appreciated the depth and breadth of his research and learned a lot. I was surprised that not listed in his bibliography is Florence King's book "Southern Ladies and Gentlemen" which isn't a history, but builds on the same foundations he does.
I was really amazed at reading how much the early Lincoln administration did not really believe a war would happen and how much Union leaders didn't understand that the southern secessionists definitely were prepared to kill for their horrifying beliefs and system of enslaving other people. 
I'm docking a star for 2 reasons: 1)I don't know why he couldn't write "people" after describing folks' race, but it was jarring to keep encountering it and 2)he clearly got a little enamored with the secessionists he is writing about and I wouldn't have minded less of them and less of the tenuous line he tries to draw between their personal lives and their social and political positions. Folks weren't racists just because they were sad ab so many deaths in their families or they didn't make their fathers proud, but he tiptoes too close to that kind of argument for my liking