Especially striking to me is the author’s central thesis: that the United States could easily have descended into a spiral of never-ending bloodshed and guerilla warfare (a la Bosnia, Chechnya, Sudan, Northern Ireland, etc.) but for the restraint of Generals Lee and Grant and Lincoln’s desire that the Confederate states be fully welcomed back into the Union.

Winik believes that Lee and other Confederate generals could easily have chosen to continue fighting as guerillas, but chose not to because they were aware of the horrific consequences of the guerilla fighting that had taken place in Missouri and Kansas. Missouri in the 1860s sounds an awful lot like Vietnam in the 1960s — little if any distinction between civilians and combatants, Union and Confederate guerillas impersonating each other, entire towns and counties destroyed in order to “save” them, people living in constant fear of betrayal by family, friends and neighbors. (Could this be the real reason Missouri became known as the “Show Me State” ? )

Had the Confederates gone guerrilla, had Grant been harsher toward the defeated Rebel soldiers and civilians, or had public sentiment after Lincoln’s assassination turned more toward revenge against the South, things might be a lot different today.

(Let us hope that historically ignorant schoolgirls today do not develop fond feelings toward Henry VIII just because Jonathan Rhys-Meyers looks quite dashing in period costume. Any young woman who has the impression Henry looked like Rhys-Meyers is bound to be disappointed by Holbein’s portrait.:-))