Fighting Means Killing

Numerous books on the Civil War deal in part with the idea of killing in combat, but none make it a central theme and certainly none make it the entire subject. Jonathan M. Steplyk's Fighting Means Killing: Civil War Soldiers and the Nature of Combat is thus a unique addition to our understanding of the war. Blending an impressive argument about soldiers' lack of aversion to killing with what historians have found about the nature of killing in other wars, Steplyk offers an engrossing and convincing look into one of the Civil War's more grisly issues." - Timothy B. Smith, author of Shiloh: Conquer or Perish and Grant Invades Tennessee: The 1862 Battles for Forts Henry and Donelson

"Americans of the nineteenth century were all too aware of death, even violent death at the hands of each other. But nothing prepared the nation for the scale of military killing generated by the Civil War. Nor will we, who have learned to sentimentalize that conflict so much, be prepared for the profile of slaughter laid out so skillfully by Jonathan Steplyk. This book presents the horrific edge of killing in the most sobering detail, from Elmer Ellsworth to Ft. Pillow. It is a story of good deaths and bad, of blind bloodlust and instinctive repugnance, of bayonets and musket stocks, of closed eyes and open wounds-which is to say, an all-too-human story. I have never seen the Civil War's 'face of battle' appear in uglier or clearer form." - Allen C. Guelzo, Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War Era and director of the Civil War Era Studies Program, Gettysburg College

"The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history, but many soldiers had to overcome religious or moral scruples against killing. How did they do it? There is no simple or single answer to this question. Jonathan Steplyk's answers, grounded in thorough research and incisive analysis, offer new perspectives on the motives of Civil War soldiers." - James M. McPherson, author of The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters

"Steplyk is the first Civil War historian to write a book that directly considers the uncomfortable truth that the war's soldiers were willing killers. By analyzing why, how, and when soldiers killed (and did not kill), this thought-provoking and important work of cultural and military history takes readers to the epicenter of combat and to the heart of the soldier." - Lorien Foote, author of The Yankee Plague: Escaped Union Prisoners and the Collapse of the Confederacy