Excerpts from a wide range of period newspapers offer a detailed account of the Civil War and reveal how the media skewed how Northerners and Southerners viewed the war.

Introduction: This Is a War of Opinion -- Why They Fought -- First Shots -- Freedoms Worth Fighting For -- Slavery Alone Is the Cause of All the Trouble -- Confronting the Enemy -- War and Rumors of War: Manassas, 1861 -- Occupied and Dishonored: New Orleans, 1862 -- The Emancipation Proclamation -- Emancipation in Northern Eyes -- Emancipation in Southern Eyes -- Blacks in Union Blue -- Points of Crisis -- If We Are Subjugated We Will Do It Ourselves -- We Are Now in the Great Crisis of the War -- A Perfect Reign of Terror -- The Confederacy Undone -- Smashing Things to the Sea, and Onward -- We Must Employ Slavery If We Expect to Perpetuate Slavery -- Endings and Beginnings -- In the Loss of Lee, They Lose Everything -- The Greatest Crime of Modern Times -- From War to Peace.