North Against South: The American Iliad, 1848-1877

An excellent history of the War Between the States and Reconstruction, which is being used at Liberty University, the University of South Carolina, by homeschoolers, numerous private classical and Christian academies, and history enthusiasts everywhere. “…the Southern version…” –John Mering, University of Arizona “Johnson presents all of the basic facts that the beginning student or casual reader should know. Yet it is the author’s assertions that make this book as provocative as it is stimulating…. Johnson … concludes that the horrors of Reconstruction were but a continuation of atrocities perpetuated during the war by Union armies…. How refreshing it is now to see a new conservative approach to Civil War history.” –James I. Robertson, Virginia Polytechnic Institute “Ludwell Johnson’s work is the history that has long been waited for by Southerners (and by their sympathizers, for more numerous than is usually admitted). By marshalling objective information that has long been known but ignored, Johnson has desacralized ‘the glorious war for the Union’ and redeemed the honour of the Confederacy.” –Clyde N. Wilson, University of South Carolina “[Johnson] prefers Lee to Grant as a military commander and Jefferson Davis to Lincoln as a war president; and he sees the South as defending itself against an aggressive North. Here, in short, is a controversial history of the Civil War era. But if learning begins with provocation … readers of this book will be doubly educated—first in the remarkable amount of information it contains, and second in its challenge to orthodoxy and consequent stimulus to thought.” –Don B. Fehrenbacher, Stanford University “Johnson does a masterful job of integrating the political, social, economic, racial, and other issues … this is a volume that the knowledgeable Civil War era student will find stimulating and perhaps argumentative.” –E.B. Long, University of Wyoming