Download or read book The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction written by Mark E. Neely and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neely considers the war’s destructiveness in a comparative context, revealing the sense of limit that guided the conduct of American soldiers and statesmen. Modern overemphasis on violence in Civil War literature has led many scholars to go too far in drawing analogies with the 20th century’s “total war” and the grim guerrilla struggles of Vietnam.