In ^"I...the real war will never get in the books", Louis P. Masur brings together the personal letters, diary entries, and journal articles of some of the most distinguished writers of the time to constitute a striking literary landscape. These wartime writings illuminate the lines of connection between the personal, political, and creative, as well as offer an intimate look at the writers who labored to find the words with which they hoped to influence the war. This collection includes works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, Louisa May Alcott, and John Esten Cooke, as well as the less well-known Lydia Maria Child, William Gilmore Simms, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John De Forest (all best-selling authors in their time), and diarist Charlotte Forten. With a Foreword by James McPherson, <em>"the real war will neber get in the books"</em> provides a new and intimate look at the Civil War.