What was it like to live during the Civil War? Not only for the soldiers, but for their wives and children, mothers and fathers, sweethearts and friends? How did people in the North and in the South cope with four years of fear and misery, death and destruction? In Voices from the Civil War, twenty-six women and men, black and white, young and old tell their stories, how they struggled to survive the greatest conflict in American history. Among the voices are an Alabama man who fought for the Union, a newly emancipated slave who refused to leave the plantation of her life-long bondage, a woman who lived in a cave with her starving family, a soldier who survived the nightmare of captivity in a POW camp, and a woman who secretly turned to prostitution to support her disabled veteran husband and their child. Grounded in historical fact, these fictional characters relate how they experienced the turmoil of warfare omitted in books that focus on generals, battles and military strategy.