At the start of this period there was little action as each side reviewed its position and counted its heads and guns. The North had positive advantages (but not one in General McClellan who is impaled forever in this book by extracts from his arrogant letters). The South recognised that it would have to strike hard to win, but it had terrible handicaps (including flintlock rifles which would not fire in the rain). Gradually the action emerged and with it the stature of Lee, Grant, Jefferson Davis and Sherman. And gradually too the civil war changed its nature from an uninspiring police action to a series of bloody clashes in the cause of ending human slavery.