[Part 1] [Disc 1] Prelude to war -- The election of 1860 -- The lower South secedes -- The crisis at Fort Sumter -- The opposing sides, I -- The opposing sides, II ; [Disc 2] The common soldier -- First Manassas or Bull Run -- Contending for the border states -- Early Union triumphs in the west -- Shiloh and Corinth -- The Peninsula Campaign --

[Part 2] [Disc 3] The Seven Days' battles -- The Kentucky campaign of 1862 -- Antietam -- The background to emancipation -- Emancipation completed -- Filling the ranks ; [Disc 4] Sinews of war-finance and supply -- The war in the west, winter 1862-63 -- The war in Virginia, winter and spring 1862-63 -- Gettysburg -- Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Tullahoma -- A season of uncertainty, summer and fall 1863 --

[Part 3] [Disc 5] Grant at Chattanooga -- The diplomatic front -- African-Americans in wartime, I -- African-Americans in wartime, II -- Wartime reconstruction -- The naval war ; [Disc 6] The river war & Confederate commerce raiders -- Women at war, I -- Women at war, II -- Stalemate in 1864 -- Sherman versus Johnston in Georgia -- The wilderness to Spotsylvania --

[Part 4] [Disc 7] Cold Harbor to Petersburg

The Confederate home front, I

The Confederate home front, II

The Northern home front, I

The Northern home front, II

Prisoners of war ; [Disc 8] Mobile Bay and Atlanta

Petersburg, the Crater, and the Valley

The final campaigns

Petersburg to Appomattox

Closing scenes and reckonings

Remembering the war