Infantry

If there is one conflict which is remarkable from all points of view, then it can only be the American Civil War. This conflict lasting from 1861 to 1865, during which the armies from the Southern States of the almost one hundred-year-old republic of the United States of America confronted those from the North, is considered to be the last of the classic wars-long Napoleonic lines - and the first of the modern 20th century ones, using as it did up-to-date technology for the first time, and in an intensive way. This fratricidal conflict, the most murderous that the United States had suffered until then, was the fruit of a long series of political, economic and ideological compromises between two civilisations which scarcely concealed their divergences. The ferocious economic appetite in the North pitted against the principales of independence and the question of slavery in the South could only lead to an explosion.

Four years of intense, murderous total war followed, with Johnny Reb showing no mercy to Billy Yank. Everything has been said and written about the conflict; the joie de vivre of the South, its elegance, its spirit of chivalry, its loyalty to age-old traditions including slavery; the industrial war machine in the North, its humanist values, its storekeeper's courage but also its greed and its inexorable planning spirit. From Gone with the Wind to Birth of a Nation, all the clichés have been used. Interpretations of the causes and effects of the American Civil War will not be gone into any further as this is not the aim of the book.

Within the space of one hundred and sixty pages, this two volume work presents the broadest panorama possible of the uniforms worn by the combattants in this conflict. The most characteristic features and the principal organisational structures are shown in the following chapters in the form of a small practical guide.