BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER
The American Civil War, 1861–1865By Robert Calhoun Stoddard
Length5h 48m
About this audiobook
The complete narrative history of the American Civil War, 1861-1865 — Grant, Lee, Sherman, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the unfinished struggle for a nation torn apart by slavery.
At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, a signal gun fired from Fort Johnson, South Carolina. The shell burst above Fort Sumter. Inside, Major Robert Anderson — a Kentuckian who had owned enslaved people and chose Union loyalty — commanded eighty-five soldiers on reduced rations. The bombardment lasted thirty-four hours. Two men died in a surrender ceremony accident: the first fatalities of a war that would kill 620,000 more.
This is the story of that war — how it came to be fought, how it was fought, and what it left behind. Historian Robert Calhoun Stoddard traces the full arc of the American Civil War from the Missouri Crisis of 1819 through Appomattox, Reconstruction's promise, and the Lost Cause mythology that followed — centering Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Frederick Douglass, and the 620,000 dead.
Inside this Civil War history:
Bleeding Kansas and the collapse of compromise — 5,000 armed Missourians stuffing ballot boxes, John Brown's Pottawatomie killings, and the destruction of the political center (Chapters 1-2)
Fort Sumter — Lincoln's calculated decision to send only food, maneuvering Jefferson Davis into firing first (Chapter 4)
Antietam, Gettysburg, and the turning point — the bloodiest single day in American history and the three days in July 1863 that shattered Confederate offensive power and opened the door to the Emancipation Proclamation (Chapters 9, 12)
Black Americans in the Civil War — Sergeant William Carney holding the 54th Massachusetts flag at Fort Wagner through multiple wounds; 166 United States Colored Troops regiments; Confederate executions of Black prisoners at Fort Pillow (Chapter 15)
Grant's Overland Campaign and Petersburg — 52,000 Union casualties in five weeks and a nine-and-a-half-month siege that finally broke Lee's army (Chapters 17-18)
Sherman's March — 62,000 men, 300 miles, $100 million in Confederate property destroyed (Chapter 18)
The Lost Cause and its costs — how the mythology was built, what it erased, and why the war's questions were not cleanly answered (Chapters 23-24)
The Civil War settled two things: the United States was indivisible, and slavery would not survive. What it left unsettled — whether Black Americans would be full citizens — the next century would contest. This Civil War narrative gives readers the full reckoning: battles, home fronts, Black soldiers, and the long shadow the war cast.
For readers of Shelby Foote's THE CIVIL WAR: A NARRATIVE and James McPherson's BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length5 hrs 48 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJun 3, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Prologue: The House Divided
3PART ONE: THE ROAD TO WAR (1820–1861)
4Chapter 1: A Nation Fracturing — The Origins of Sectional Crisis
5Chapter 2: Bleeding Kansas — Popular Sovereignty and Political Violence
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6Chapter 3: The Election of 1860 — Lincoln and the Collapse of Union
7Chapter 4: Fort Sumter — The First Shots
8PART TWO: THE ARMIES (1861–1862)
9Chapter 5: The Union Army — Building a Fighting Force
10Chapter 6: The Confederate Army — The Southern War Machine
11Chapter 7: The Commanders — Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Jackson
12Chapter 8: The First Year — Bull Run to Shiloh
13PART THREE: THE TURNING POINT (1862–1863)
14Chapter 9: Antietam — The Bloodiest Day in American History
15Chapter 10: The Emancipation Proclamation — War Becomes Revolution
16Chapter 11: Chancellorsville — Lee's Greatest Victory
17Chapter 12: Gettysburg — Three Days in July
18PART FOUR: THE HOME FRONTS (1861–1865)
19Chapter 13: The Northern Home Front — Industry, Politics, and Dissent
20Chapter 14: The Southern Home Front — Sacrifice, Shortages, and Collapse
21Chapter 15: Black Americans in the Civil War — From Bondage to Battle
22Chapter 16: Women in the Civil War — Nurses, Spies, and Soldiers
23PART FIVE: TOTAL WAR (1864–1865)
24Chapter 17: Grant's Overland Campaign — The Road to Richmond
25Chapter 18: Sherman's March — Total War in the Deep South
26Chapter 19: The Naval War — Ironclads, Blockades, and Sea Battles
27Chapter 20: The Fall of Richmond — The Confederacy's Final Days
28PART SIX: LEGACY AND MEMORY (1865–PRESENT)
29Chapter 21: Appomattox — Surrender and Its Terms
30Chapter 22: The Price of War — Casualties, Destruction, and Trauma
31Chapter 23: The Lost Cause — Memory, Myth, and Reconciliation
32Chapter 24: The Civil War's Long Shadow — What the War Decided
33Epilogue: What the War Decided
34Acknowledgments
35Selected Bibliography
36About the Author
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