2012 Audie Award Finalist, History. An epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefield, this account of how the Civil War began and a second American revolution unfolded introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes. Among them, an acrobatic militia colonel, and explorer's wife, and idealistic band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, and a young college professor who would one day become President.