As the nation began to rebuild, projects that had been interrupted by the Civil
War resumed. Construction of a transcontinental
railroad began in 1862, and work from the western end continued during the war. In 1869 a golden spike was driven
into the track at Promontory Summit, Utah, marking the completion of the country's first
nationwide railroad. Civil war inevitably divides a nation's voice into factions. Northern and Southern writers, black and white, male and female, high-ranking officers and lowly foot soldiers all expressed different perspectives on their wartime experiences through diaries and letters. These more personal accounts contrasted with the public pronouncements of
President Lincoln, whose inspirational Gettysburg Address proved to be one of the most enduring works of the Civil War. After the war, fiction created by realistic writers
such as Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane focused on the human tragedy of the war.
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