What if Douglas instead of Lincoln had won the presidential election of 1860? What if the Confederates had pushed their advantage and advanced on Washington following their victory at Bull Run? What if Lincoln had not been assassinated? Questions like these help historians answer other broader queries such as: Was the Civil War inevitable? Could the South really have won the war?

This book examines key events and decisions of the Civil War, giving some of the subject's foremost experts a chance to reflect on the actualities of what could have (and what could not have) happened. Each of the chronologically arranged sections briefly introduces a topic, poses a counter-historical question and presents the responses of several leading scholars, and synthesizes and recaps these often divergent opinions. The work concludes with survey results from the panel of experts regarding several all-encompassing Civil War topics.