S.C. Gwynne

S.C. Gwynne is the author of Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War and the New York Times bestsellers Rebel Yell and Empire of the Summer Moon, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He spent most of his career as a journalist, including stints with Time as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor, and with Texas Monthly as executive editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife.

From Gwynne's Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to focus on the last year of the Civil War in your new book?

A: The final year defined, in so many ways, the lasting legacy of the war. It was, for one thing, much more desperate, brutal, violent, and hate-driven than the earlier years of the conflict, which some historians have referred to as a “band box war.” Meaning that young men marched off to war to the sound of bands playing with dreams of glory and quick victory in their heads.

The last year of the war saw the rise of enormously violent anti-civilian warfare in the form of William Tecumseh Sherman’s marches and Phil Sheridan’s destruction of the Shenandoah Valley. There was also the rise of the extremely violent guerrilla war, mostly in the northern states of the South.

The final year of the war also saw 180,000 black troops in the Union army, 10 percent of the total—over 60 percent of whom were former slaves. Their presence...[read on]

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--Marshal Zeringue