In this Yale lecture from the America at 250: A History course, Professor David Blight walks students through the course of the Civil War itself, covering the path to Union victory, the reasons for Confederate defeat, and the process and meaning of emancipation. Recorded in Yale's Battell Chapel as part of the DeVane Lecture series, the class is one installment in a one time course that surveys United States history from 1776 to the present through the lens of three Yale historians. The lecture connects military and political developments during the war to the broader transformation of American society, following directly from the prior class's account of secession and the outbreak of fighting.