Two miserable presidents: everything your schoolbooks didn't tell you about the Civil War

Get the feeling something big is about to happen? Welcome to the Civil War-one of the scariest, saddest, and occasionally wackiest stories in American History. 1856: Northern and Southern settlers attack each other in Kansas. 1858: Congressmen start sneaking guns and knives into the Senate chamber. 1860: President James Buchanan is heard wailing, "I am the last president of the United States!" Unraveling a very complicated string of events-the small things, the personal ones, the big issues-Steve Sheinkin takes readers behind the scenes that led to The Civil War. It is a time and a war that threatened America's very existence, revealed in the surprising true stories of the soldiers and statesmen who battled it out.