Bloodstains is Howard Ray White's epic history of America from the first settlements at Jamestown, Virginia Colony to the conclusion of the political reconstruction of our country following the horrific War Between the States. A focus on that war is critically important because it caused the untimely death of one million Americans, North and South, White and Black. As everyone knows, following the Confederate surrender, four million colored people who had previously lived lives as slaves, were immediately emancipated and required to make a living for themselves and their families within a South that had been devastated by a conflict which had escalated into a war against Southern civilians as well as against Southern military defenders. This epic history is presented as four volumes, each continuing the history that followed the previous. The first volume was titled, The Nation Builders. Concluding in March 1848, Volume 1 presented the background through which subsequent volumes can be more accurately judged. Volume 2 explains the rise of exclusionism in the North and how that movement grew into the powerful political force that gave rise to the Republican Party in the Northern States and the election of Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln. Secession of seven Southern states followed. Next was President Lincoln's maneuvering to incite Confederates to fire the first shot in Charleston, South Carolina, which he was seeking so he would succeed at calling up Northern state militia.In Howard Ray White's Bloodstains series, you live, yes live, through America's turbulent and amazing times, from our beginning, all the way to the year 1885. Why? Because much of the pertinent history he tells is through parallel biographies of the major politicians of the time. Howard Ray White takes you back. He takes you back to those years so that you may live them yourself, because he wants you to personally experience them and draw your own conclusions about the causes of the Civil War, and about the politics that produced such horrific fighting, suffering and death. Have you long wondered what caused the American Civil War? Do you doubt the reasons commonly accepted in today's society? Do you doubt that Abe Lincoln was as truthful, honest and heroic as alleged? Do you suspect that Jeff Davis was not such a scoundrel? Would you like to understand the "Lost Cause," for which Confederates fought? Do you want to truly understand that era's often-changing political attitudes toward slavery? Do you want to learn what caused the bleeding, the one million deaths and the political reconstruction that followed? Then, if you have the time, Howard Ray White has the means. Accordingly, he hopes you enjoy living our history as he tells it.For other books by Howard Ray White, and they are many, simply search Amazon for "Howard Ray White." This Book is Volume 3, The Bleeding