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Volume Four
1863: Simply Murder
The war is in its third year, and enthusiasm for the fighting has fled. In their
awful camps, men are dying of disease at the rate of two for every one slain in combat,
and at morning call, the sound of coughing drowns out the roll of drums. Yet the
struggle goes on. Robert E. Lee, at his most brilliant, devastates a vastly more
numerous Union Army at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Virginia; but the price
of these victories is costly to the South as well. Thousands of men are dead, and
resources are strained. At Vicksburg on the Mississippi, Ulysses S. Grant and his
troops lay siege to the rebel stronghold, slowly throttling the South's lifeline.
Meanwhile, General Lee prepares to invade Maryland and Pennsylvania, thereby setting
the stage for the war's greatest battle.
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