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The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil WarΓÇöa simmering crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times,TimeMenΓÇÖs HealthLit Hub On November 61860Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Unionwith one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflictbut somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between LincolnΓÇÖs election and the ConfederacyΓÇÖs shelling of SumterΓÇöa period marked by tragic errors and miscommunicationsenflamed egos and craven ambitionspersonal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were ΓÇ£so great thatcould I have anticipated themI would not have believed it possible to survive them.ΓÇ¥ At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert AndersonSumterΓÇÖs commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffina vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnutwife of a prominent planterconflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincolnbattling with his duplicitous secretary of stateWilliam Sewardas he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitableΓÇöone that will eventually kill 750000 Americans. Drawing on diariessecret communiquesslave ledgersand plantation recordsLarson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brinkΓÇöa dark reminder that we often donΓÇÖt see a cataclysm coming until itΓÇÖs too late.
