This book is a new and refreshing approach to the Civil War. It destroys the many myths propagated by other writers who say that the South could not have won the war because of the lack on industrial capacity, the blockade, the lack of manpower and many other excuses. It refutes the claim by the National Park Service and other historians who say that the South was too disorganized by victory after the first battle at Manassas to march into Washington, D.C. The confederate mistakes at Fort Donelson, the invasion of Kentucky, Stones River, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga and Atlanta are all explained. Rather then putting the blame on "Jeb" Stuart and Longstreet, as others have done, it documents that Robert E. Lee was responsible for his defeat at Gettysburg.
Much emphasis is put on the successes of the guerrillas and cavalry raiders who were killing Federal soldiers at the rate of five or six to one and who were tying up federal soldiers at the rate of 10 or 20 to one. It destroys the myth that the Union cavalry reached equality with the Confederate cavalry at the Battle of Brandy Station in June 1863. It documents the failure of Union cavalry to defeat "Jeb" Stuart or to even recapture some of their wagon train at Hanover, Pennsylvania prior to the Battle of Gettysburg. It describes the Union cavalry disasters at Buckland, Virginia in June and the following month when two union cavalry brigades were wiped out near Andersonville, Georgia. Here they lost more men than the British in the Charge if the Light Brigade.