Includes index.

Prologue.How the war began: Fort Sumter, 1861 -- Part 1. Some winners. Grant takes Vicksburg -- "Don't he look savage!" : Black Jack Logan -- Alpheus S. "Ol Pap" Williams : the fighting and writing general from Michigan -- Nathan Bedford Forrest : born to fight -- Part 2. Some losers. George B. McClellan: "I can do it all." -- Earl Van Dorn : bravery was not enough -- In quest of glory : George Stoneman's attempt to free the Andersonville prisoners -- Theophilus H. Holmes : pallbearer of the Confederacy -- Part 3. Some winners who became losers. Albert Sidney Johnston : the greatest might-have-been of the Civil War -- Death comes to the bishop : when luck ran out for Leonidas Polk -- Jim Lane of Kansas : "King of the Jayhawkers." -- William Clarke Quantrill -- Part 4. Two losers who became winners. -- Sam Houston's last stand -- Fall and rise of William Tecumseh Sherman -- Epilogue. Why the North won and the South lost.