Examines the causes of the American Civil War, why the North won, how military campaigns unfolded, and how the war affected various elements of American society.

lecture 1. Prelude to war -- lecture 2. The election of 1860 -- lecture 3. The lower South secedes -- lecture 4. The crisis at Fort Sumter -- lecture 5. The opposing sides, I -- lecture 6. The opposing sides, II -- lecture 7. The common soldier -- lecture 8. First Manassas or Bull Run -- lecture 9. Contending for the border states -- lecture 10. Early Union triumphs in the west -- lecture 11. Shiloh and Corinth -- lecture 12. The Peninsula Campaign. lecture 13. The Seven Days' battles -- lecture 14. The Kentucky campaign of 1862 -- lecture 15. Antietam -- lecture 16. The background to emancipation -- lecture 17. Emancipation completed -- lecture 18. Filling the ranks -- lecture 19. Sinews of war-finance and supply -- lecture 20. The war in the west, winter 1862-63 -- lecture 21. The war in Virginia, winter and spring 1862-63 -- lecture 22. Gettysburg -- lecture 23. Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Tullahoma -- lecture 24. A season of uncertainty, summer and fall 1863. lecture 25. Grant at Chattanooga -- lecture 26. The diplomatic front -- lecture 27. African-Americans in wartime, I -- lecture 28. African-Americans in wartime, II -- lecture 29. Wartime reconstruction -- lecture 30. The naval war -- lecture 31. The river war & Confederate commerce raiders -- lecture 32. Women at war, I -- lecture 33. Women at war, II -- lecture 34. Stalemate in 1864 -- lecture 35. Sherman versus Johnston in Georgia -- lecture 36. The wilderness to Spotsylvania. lecture 37. Cold Harbor to Petersburg -- lecture 38. The Confederate home front, I -- lecture 39. The Confederate home front, II -- lecture 40. The Northern home front, I -- lecture 41. The Northern home front, II -- lecture 42. Prisoners of war -- lecture 43. Mobile Bay and Atlanta -- lecture 44. Petersburg, the Crater, and the Valley -- lecture 45. The final campaigns -- lecture 46. Petersburg to Appomattox -- lecture 47. Closing scenes and reckonings -- lecture 48. Remembering the war.