Using the early lives and careers of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as theme and framework, two of America's finest historians outline each step in the tragic march to the Civil War. By showing how these two major figures--both Kentucky-born--developed divergent attitudes, the Cattons simultaneously reveal why the North and South became increasingly isolated from each other during the 1850s, and why war became inevitable. Also captured: the epic sweep of the era, with its great new railroads, land-hungry westward expansion, and developing industrial and agricultural empires.