1863 captures a watershed moment peopled by a remarkable cast of characters, brilliantly depicted by Joseph E. Stevens using personal letters, official documents, and rare photographs: larger-than-life leaders Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis; charismatic and controversial military commanders Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, Joseph Hooker, Stonewall Jackson, George Armstrong Custer, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Avaricious young capitalists like Andrew Carnegie, John D.

Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan ruled Wall Street, reinventing the economic landscape. In Boston, Ralph Waldo Emerson was emerging as one of the towering intellectuals of American literature. While amidst the terrible suffering and death of the war hospitals, Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott would become the moral conscience of their time.

But here, too, are the stories of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: soldiers and civilians, slaves and slave owners, farmers and city dwellers, politicians and profiteers, aristocrats and refugees. Their stories - humorous and harrowing, inspiring and appalling - make 1863 not just a sweeping re-creation of events, but an unforgettable human tale.