The Demon of Unrest

From Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 to the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861, the United States moves through secession, political paralysis and failed compromise. Lincoln has won the presidency but cannot exercise executive power until his inauguration, while outgoing president James Buchanan struggles to preserve federal authority. In Charleston Harbor, Major Robert Anderson transfers his command to Fort Sumter and waits for supplies as South Carolina and other slave states leave the Union.

Larson follows the crisis through Lincoln, William H. Seward, Jefferson Davis and P. G. T. Beauregard, while giving particular attention to secessionist Edmund Ruffin and diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut. Their letters, journals and political manoeuvres reveal how slavery, honour, ambition, misinformation and personal rivalry narrowed the possibilities for peace. The final Confederate attack on Sumter turns a constitutional crisis into open civil war.