A word from the author:

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      My interest in the American Civil War goes deep and far into the past. In high school, history and geography were my best subjects, and I wrote papers on the Battle of Little Big Horn and Pearl Harbor. I read books like “Rifles For Watie” and “The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War”, with its miraculous battle illustrations by David Greenspan. I attended the University of California at Davis and graduated from U.C. Berkeley, not as a history major but as a geographer and sociologist. Little did I know that geography would influence my writing.

      This endeavor has been a long project, influenced by a battlefield trip in 1976 (the Bicentennial), and by many other factors. A watershed for me was the PBS production of The Civil War, plus the fantastic writings of Shelby Foote, Bruce Catton, and many who have preceded me. In the last decade, the advent of vector mapping programs have allowed me to personally create maps to accompany and be tied to the text of this effort, to an extent that I have not seen elsewhere. I have used many sources, old and new, to convey to the reader the progress of the campaigns and battles therein. Of particular interest to me are the effects of climate and vegetation upon the course of the conflict, and how they affected the common soldier. I am aiming this first volume toward those who would like a single volume covering the war from December 1860 through October 1862, after which the war's character changed inexorably. Following are two more volumes, Transitions and Endings, where the story continues.

     All that said, I present to you "All Hell: An American Civil War Military History, Volume I, Beginnings"! Your comments and opinions, of course, are valued and expected!

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Richard Newman

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