Features:
- Fifty maps show the events, including relatively small engagements, that took place in the successive months of the war.
- Thirteen additional maps focus on the Far West theater.
- Six maps, beginning with November 1860, detail the political situation in the months leading up to the war's outbreak. They show such information as free and slave states; secessionist sentiment; and the results of the 1860 census and the presidential election of the same year.
- Events of each month, including such details as dates, place-names, commanders, and statistics on troop strength and casualties, are summarized in the text facing each map.
- Confederate and Union positions, as well as towns that were occupied, raided, or burned, are clearly marked.