Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson is an excellent one volume history of the war, and a great place to start.

I've always been fond of Bruce Catton's narrative style, and he had many excellent books about the war.

I have a lot of personal problems with the default answer (McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom), so I'm going to copy from a previous answer of mine.

The frustrating thing is that while McPherson's synthesis has been seriously problematized over the past thirty years or so, I can't really think of a general synthesis that's since replaced it. I can only really chuck recommendations for unconnected works at you and count on you to tie them together for yourself. Let me know if there are specific subjects you're interested in, and I'll see what I can find for you.

That said, once you have an idea of Civil War orthodoxy, the following should complicate things nicely.

In the Presence of Mine Enemies, by Edward Ayers examines the Civil War through the lens of two communities in the Shenandoah Valley, one Northern, one Southern, and illustrates both the closeness and similarity of the North and South before the war and the ferocity of their enmity during it. The emphasis here is on contingency, how much of the war came down to choice and chance. The book ends the day before the Battle of Gettysburg; the next volume should be out relatively soon, though I can't find a solid date on it.

Regarding tactics specifically, Earl J. Hess questions a lot of the received wisdom regarding the effect of the rifle on Civil War combat; check out Civil War Infantry Tactics, The Rifle-Musket and Combat: Myth and Reality, and his series on field works and fortifications.

Ethan Rafuse has published revisionist works concerning controversial Union generals, most prominently in McClellan's War, where he points out the role of Washington and Lincoln specifically in failures usually pointed at the generals. That's not to say they're blameless, but Foote and McPherson have to argue against the evidence to call him some kind of genius military strategist, and his role in the civil war within the Union high command often did not do him credit.

When Sherman Marched North from the Sea by Jacqueline Campbell revises much of the mainstream understanding of Sherman's marches through the Southern interior, exploring the role of women and slaves in some depth, and arguing the campaign was not as destructive to Southern civilian morale as is commonly understood.

Similarly, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Towards Southern Civilians by Mark Grimsley attempts to chart the evolving civil action of Union armies in the Confederacy, and arguing against the idea that total war was an invention of Sherman, emphasizing the restraint and civic mindedness of the American soldier and the rational calculation of the high command.