"A conservative Democrat who argued for limited war aims, Buell viewed the Civil War as a contest to restore the antebellum Union rather, than a struggle to bring significant social change to the slaveholding South. Stephen Engle explores the effects that this attitude - one shared by a number of other Union officers early in the war - had on the Northern high command and on political-military relations.

He examines Buell's disputes with such figures as Andrew Johnson (then military governor of Tennessee), Henry W. Halleck, George B. McClellan, and Abraham Lincoln. In addition, Engle offers a detailed look at events in the Western Theater during the fall and winter of 1862 and shows how quarreling among Union commanders slowed Northern progress in that vital region."--BOOK JACKET.

"Engle also devotes considerable attention to the ramifications within the Army of the Ohio of its commander's proslavery leanings. Buell's orders and pronouncements concerning contraband slaves and the treatment of Confederate civilians placed him at odds with a significant portion of the men under his command - a fact that suggests that antislavery sentiment within the ranks of the Union army was more pronounced than previously believed."--BOOK JACKET.