Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865

Here is a bold, new interpretation of the military conduct of the Civil War that sheds new light on the cultural and intellectual life of antebellum America. Adams challenges the prevailing view that in the Virginia campaigns superior Southern military skills led to Confederate victories. The union armies, he argues, defeated themselves by assuming Southern superiority. - Jacket flap.