The final book by Marquette University historian Frank L. Klement (1905-1994), this is a vivid chronological narrative of Wisconsin's role in the pivotal event in American history. In this volume, Klement greatly expanded his 1962 booklet on this topic, adding new material on each of Wisconsin's fifty-three infantry regiments, political and constitutional issues, soldiers voting, women and the war, and Wisconsin's black soldiers.

Frank L. Klement was born in northeastern Wisconsin in 1905. He earned an undergraduate degree at the Wisconsin State Teachers' College in Stevens Point. He went on to earn a master's degree and a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined the history faculty at Marquette University in Milwaukee in 1948, where he spent the balance of his career as a teacher and historian. Klement wrote nine books and more than 50 articles about the Civil War era. He retired from full-time teaching in 1975 but continued as an emeritus member of the Marquette University faculty until 1984. Klement died on July 29, 1994, shortly after putting the finishes on the manuscript for Wisconsin in the Civil War, his final book.