5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly Captures the Passions and Uncertainty at the Outbreak of America's Civil War

C.S. · August 2, 2024

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } The Demon of UnrestDemon of Unrest demonstrates that a talented author, in this case Erik Larson, can find something new to say about a historical period that one might think has already been examined from every angle and by brilliant historians.Larson has concentrated on a period of less than six months — from Lincoln’s election on November 6, 1860 to the firing on Fort Sumpter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., on April 12, 1861, its evacuation two days later, and Lincoln’s request of states to provide 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion, issued April 15, 1861.Two characters loom large in Larson’s narrative.The first of these is Major Robert Anderson, Fort Sumter’s commanding officer and a former slave owner from the South who nevertheless is loyal to the Union. He is portrayed sympathetically, as he makes an early decision without orders to abandon the forts on the mainland around Charleston as indefensible and surreptitiously transfers his troops to the fort in the middle of the harbor which is more easily defended. Anderson shows great concern for his troops and makes the best of the limited provisions and inadequate, dilapidated defenses of the fort. As the narrative unfolds, Anderson beseeches his superiors in Washington not only for supplies and reinforcements but also for direction on what he should do. His entreaties are met with silence.Edmund Ruffin is the character the author chooses to portray the rising, irrational passion of southerners to secede. A rabble rouser, Ruffin was frustrated that his efforts to promote secession in Virginia are ineffective. But John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 gave Ruffin an opportunity to raise his personal profile as an apostle of disunion. Thwarted by the hesitancy in Virginia, where many dismissed him as a hate-mongering fanatic, and in Kentucky where many favored preservation of the Union, Ruffin transfers his campaign to South Carolina and joins a special convention in Columbia that approves secession. There, and soon after in Charleston, he is feted as a hero. Although without a military background, he attaches himself to the Palmetto Guard, a state militia unit comprising South Carolina aristocracy, and ends up pulling the lanyard to fire the first shot on Fort Sumter.What about Lincoln during this period? Larson does a brilliant job of putting the reader in the moment and recreating the uncertainty and unprecedented nature of the time.Lincoln had the overriding goal of preserving the Union, but he had no experience in Washington and was unfamiliar with the levers of power. Things looked bleak. And in the period between his election and inauguration, Lincoln was powerless. Would Buchanan and General Winfield Scott simply surrender Sumter and other southern forts?Furthermore, Lincoln was uncertain his election would be confirmed in a count of electoral votes — a potential problem that resonates given the attempt on January 6, 2021 to disrupt such a count. The constitutionally mandated final count and certification of the electoral vote was to take place on February 13, 1861. “If the two Houses refuse to meet at all, or meet without quorum of each, where shall we be?” Lincoln wrote. “I think it best for me not to attempt appearing in Washington till the result of that ceremony is known.”As we now know, the count did take place and Lincoln received a majority of electoral votes. But the soon-to-be president was still finding his way. Lincoln asked William Seward, his secretary of state, to review the draft of his inaugural address. Seward, believing himself the only man who understood the situation, edited the draft considerably. Fortunately Lincoln did not take the more controversial changes. In particular, Lincoln ignored Seward’s stilted redraft of the conclusion of the address and personally re-wrote the ending, “laden with reverence and barely suppressed emotion.”Throughout the book, Larson draws on the contemporary observations of a British journalist, William Howard Russell of the Times of London. Russell was struck by the Lincoln administration’s inability to influence events. “Everywhere the Southern leaders are forcing on a solution with decision and energy,” he wrote, “whilst the Government appears to be helplessly drifting with the current of events.” Many felt Seward, not Lincoln, was the most powerful man in government.Indeed poor Major Anderson, besieged at Fort Sumter, received no advice nor updates from Washington. Meanwhile the southerners brought up artillery to fire on Sumter from six directions and to prevent Union resupply or reinforcement from the sea.Larson chronicles the efforts Anderson and his men made to hold out, but the bombardment over many days and the lack of provisions eventually required them to surrender and evacuate the fort. The next day Lincoln issued a proclamation to put down the rebellion and reassert the authority of U.S. law.There are other characters in the book that enliven and help recreate the social atmosphere and white-hot rhetoric of the South at the time, among whom is Mary Chestnut who is portrayed much less kindly by Larson than in Ken Burns’ civil war series.This is a book worth reading, as it captures the uncertainties of the period and provokes the modern reader to think about how our institutions can be swept away by widespread, unthinking passion. Indeed, the lessons seem pertinent at the time of writing this review as we approach the presidential vote of 2024.

4.0 out of 5 stars If one wonders

g. · June 7, 2025

Why the country is so divided and such a mess,the irony of slavery is that it's still destroying the peace of this country.

5.0 out of 5 stars So much to enjoy and lament

C.R. · January 31, 2025

Historians date the start of America’s Civil War with a rebel attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. What Erik Larson adds is the suspenseful and dramatic series of events leading to the attack.In vivid detail, Larson describes a South emboldened by its self-righteous defense of slavery, and a North caught in transition between one president and another. The circumstances are remarkably like those following the 2020 Presidential election. Among them:• Fears that pro-slavery forces would disrupt the certification of electors.• Abraham Lincoln’s foes spread conspiracy theories that his election would embolden Southern slaves to arise and kill their owners.• The man authorized to count and certify the electoral votes was Lincoln’s primary opponent in the election.• On certification day, crowds of angry Southerners swarmed the Capitol, “firing off obscenities like grapeshot.”The hub of the Southern rebellion was South Carolina, whose harbor contained Fort Sumter and other federal outposts. In December of 1860, following Lincoln’s victory, the state’s leading political figures gathered in Charleston to declare their secession from the Union.The outgoing president, James Buchanan, ruled that if a state wanted to secede, the federal government could do nothing about it. Lincoln, who could not take power until his inauguration on March 4, had to bide his time while other Southern states joined the parade.Larson recounts the dilemma of Captain Robert Anderson, Fort Sumter’s commander, whose seventy-five starving men burned buildings and gun carriages to keep warm while two thousand South Carolina troops occupied nearby forts, mounted cannons, and stockpiled ammunition in preparation for an attack. Fearful of sparking a war, the federal government delayed a supply mission until it was too late.As he does in all his histories, Larson provides a sense of the times by plundering diaries, letters, memoirs, and other documents. Mary Chestnut, wife of a Confederate colonel, lived on a huge plantation with a lumber mill, grist mill, stables, forges, cotton gin, ice house, and quarters for hundreds of Black slaves. William Russell, an English journalist, described his astonishment at seeing spittoons and tobacco stains wherever he went. A visiting German reporter recalled Lincoln’s disarming humor when the two men took shelter from a rainstorm in a railroad car. There, Lincoln talked about his career and laughed, “Just think of such a sucker as me as President!” Larson even lists the household furniture Lincoln sold to pay for his inauguration trip to Washington.There is so much to enjoy and lament in this book. One can understand the buildup to war while recognizing the futility of it. The Civil War killed 750,000 Americans. Yet today, partisan anger divides us again. Erik Larson’s history is a five-star reminder that if it happened once, it could happen again.

An excellent perspective on the lead up to the Civil War

J.S. · January 27, 2025

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } In this work the author seeks to work through the events that led up to the Civil War from both a Northern and Southern perspective.He covers many of the primary characters from before Lincoln was elected up until the surrender of Fort Sumter in April 1861.He shows that a number of factors helped lead to these events, focusing in particular on the push for secession in the South. Unfortunately, he barely touches on the abolitionist movement, in particular John Brown's raid, that pushed the South to fear Northern action and therefore push it further towards secession.He shows that the inaction of Buchannan, as well as the silence of Lincoln after his election, led to a vacuum in which Southern fears were increased, and secession looked to Southern eyes as the only way forward.And, in the middle of it all, was Major Anderson and his men in Fort Sumter who were not helped by either Buchannan or Lincoln, but, in Anderson's perspective, left alone and abandoned to their fate.In a fascinating piece of writing, he describes the bombardment of Sumter, as well as its eventual, and inevitable, surrender.And, in a statement the author repeats on numerous occasions, much of this occurred because Lincoln in particular, and the North in general, did not understand the South, because northerners rarely visited the South, while Southerners regularly visited the North, and were therefore fully cognizant of Northern views, values, and attitudes.And, finally, the author shows that it was only after Lincoln called out the troops to "quell the rebellion" that Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas voted to secede from the Union, for they refused to supply troops to fight against their fellow southerners, while Kentucky, although not seceding, also refused to supply troops. And it was the secession of Virginia that led to the resignation of Robert E. Lee, who ultimately became General of the Army of Northern Virginia.One can only speculate what would have happened if that order had not been given, or if Sumter had been evacuated earlier. Would these states have seceded? Would the Confederacy have collapsed when the realities of nationhood, and the submission to a central government, hit these states? Would three quarters of a million people not been killed? What would have happened . . . if?

Larson writes another winner!

P.W.S. · May 18, 2024

Erik Larson is one of the outstanding authors of current times. His analysis of history and his unique manner of expressing events if truly remarkable.In this book, Larson deals with the deep unrest which permeated the United States at the time of the accession of Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. Presidency.Larson's timing of the retelling of the deep schism in American Society in 1861 is in perfect juxtaposition with the deep unrest in American Society today. The demon is in the details.This is a truly remarkable book!

Gut recherchiert

H.B. · October 23, 2024

Sehr gut geschrieben, spannend, auch wenn man den Ausgang kennt.

Excellent writing

G. · May 17, 2024

Larson does a great job of developing the history of Lincoln’s first election, the transfer of power issues and the beginnings of secession as well as the depth of slavery in the South and the history of the focal point that was Ft. Sumter and the beginnings of the civil war. Larson is an excellent writer and this is on par with his other works.

Disppointing

G. · November 12, 2024

I've loved all of Erik Larson's books, and had great expectations for this one, but it's a let-down. While understanding that there are Civil War aficionados who drool over the tiniest details of that historic event, but to anyone else, it's incredibly tedious. It's as if it was written solely for that niche of Civil War fans and nobody else. Larson is great at bringing history to life, especially pockets of history unknown and undiscovered by most, but this one left me cold. It's simply not interesting. Let's hope he can lift his game for next time.