More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation, describing how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality.

• This Republic of Suffering made the New York Times Book Review list of "10 Best Books of 2008" as chosen by the papers editors. The book was also a finalist for the National Book Awards (2008) and the Pulitzer Prize. (2009) 
• This Republic of Suffering received the 2009 Bancroft Prize from Columbia University.