This is Shelby Foote's massive three-volume, three-thousand-page narrative history of the Civil War, in a fourteen-volume illustrated edition published by Time-Life to commemorate the 40th-anniversary of the appearance of the first volume.
I read it when the third volume appeared, in 1974, and it instantly became one of my favorite books. If there has been a greater work of literature written in America in my lifetime, I don't know what it would be. I've always meant to read it again, and thought this illustrated edition would be a good one for a second visit. It will be my winter reading project.
I wouldn't recommend this version for a first read — Foote's prose is so fine that it really ought to be experienced initially on its own — but this edition has the virtue of being less daunting, taken one slim volume at a time, and the pictures and color maps are cool.