No war in our history, has the power to fire the imagination as does the Civil War, or The War Between the States. Obviously, that's because it was our very own war. It belonged to us, and nobody else. Professional and amateur historians keep fighting and re-fighting it constantly. If Grant had done this, or if Lee had done that... We're obsessed with the battles, the great bloody battles. But there were greater, more important, more decisive battles. Battles in which not one drop of blood was shed. Battles which did not occur on the open field. Today's story begins in Charleston, South Carolina, and it is the beginning of the year 1863...