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The War Between the States America's Uncivil War
Q: From where did the vision come for this book? A: It began several years ago when I was asked to teach a series of classes on the War Between the States at a classical Christian schools in the country. When I saw the text they had for the War Between the States, I realized it was no more historically accurate or sensitive to a Constitutionalist philosophy or Christian world view than those in the government school curricula. Q: How could that be? A: The school told me they couldn't find anything better. The very catalog through which they ordered it offered a qualifier--an apology of sorts--for even selling it.
Q: What did you do? A: I asked permission to put that book aside and bring in my own resources, and the headmaster happily granted it. Then I began to search for alternative publications.
Q: What did you find? A: Sadly, not much. In fact, the more I researched, the more I heard other people asking me to let them know if I came across anything better.
A: I never found a book that combined attractive, eye-pleasing cosmetics and graphics with a trustworthy historical account and world view. What I did find was a lot of people who wanted one, and a lot of materials and information with which to create it. It just needed someone to coordinate it.
A: That's right. We are field-testing the book this year at Coram Deo Academy, where I teach history.
A: This book offers the stirring narrative of America's greatest epic and worst tragedy. The War Between the States was in reality a Fifty Years War (1828-1877) and we present its story, beginning way before that and continuing today. This book presents the many reasons for the conflict, the major events and personalities that shaped it, and the issues resolved and unresolved by it. What sets the book apart from virtually any other modern narrative of the subject are the lenses through which it is written--the traditional principles of American Constitutionalism and a Biblically-based, Christian world view. We believe The War Between the States, America's Uncivil War, rich in stories and biographical sketches, rises above comparative works by refusing to accept the shackles and sleep- inducing constraints of politically correct doctrine. How much more dramatic, exciting, and unpredictable the true story!
A: First of all, we refuse to cater to anyone's notion of the truth other than that of history itself. Most contemporary so-called "scholarship" on most time periods and particularly of the American War Between the States is so blinded by materialistic, utilitarian, Marxist-oriented perspectives on government, society, and history that it fails the "smell test" for what is accurate history, not to mention how problematic its judgments and assumptions are to those who hold a Christian world view and a traditionalist perspective of Constitutional, Republican American government.
A: The book is split into three sections, prewar, the war, and post-war and Reconstruction. The first section presents what I believe is the wisest,most circumspect, most complete and comprehensive chronicle I have ever read of the multiple and complex issues that led to the war. I'm not bashful saying that, because much of that section is comprised of material crafted by writers other than myself.
A: We present a whole host of reasons, including those related to nationalism and regionalism, States' rights and secession, slavery, the tariff and the economy, and religion and world view. Most texts and other presentations of the war focus on one or two of these, and through a liberal, politically correct filter.
A: We offer, through all sections of the book, a galaxy of biographical sketches of men and women in all walks of life, not just soldiers and statesmen, but nurses, business people, poets, inventors, and clergymen. We want to present a time and place, not just a list of battles and casualty figures. We also pay much closer attention to the influence of Christianity, on people of different viewpoints in the war, than any other comprehensive book on the conflict that I have ever seen. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart, for instance, were not remarkable men simply because they were remarkable soldiers. They also helped spearhead one of the greatest religious revivals in American history. But that gets only passing glances, if that, from most of the pedigreed historians and their works. One of the book's most compelling sections is the third and final one, on the post-war and Reconstruction period. Again, it is difficult to find an extensive treatment on this period that does not either superficially whitewash the issues or recast in terms of modern, collectivist sensibilities. We give fully the final quarter or more of our book to telling, as it has rarely if ever been told, the story of that watershed period of our history. I doubt that one American in a thousand has an inkling what that true story was.
A: First, that it would kindle a lifelong interest in the subject among its readers, in particular its young readers. Also, that it would teach them, in an interesting and informative manner, the full story of what happened during those extraordinary times, not the twisted, truncated, and wrong-headed version propagated en masse by the organized socialist conspiracy that is modern-day American academia and media. And finally, to challenge and inspire them to learn from the mistakes and accomplishments, the foolishness and brilliance, the cowardice and valor of our forefathers--all these held before the standard of God's Word--and to rise up as a generation of Christian men and women like none before it in all American history. |
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