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The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War Kindle Edition
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“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal
On November 6, 1860, Abraham 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 Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but 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 Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCrown
- Publication dateApril 30, 2024
- File size3446 KB
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Jilted at the altar of the Railroad Age, South Carolina had retreated into its own world of indolence and myth.1,006 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
“No, sir, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King.”990 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
The boat reached its wharf at twelve forty-five a.m., Friday, April 12, 1861, destined to be the single-most consequential day in American history.613 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
In those 113 days, this fortress, named for Thomas Sumter, a Revolutionary War hero, had become a profoundly dangerous place to invade and could have resisted attack quite possibly forever, but for one fatal flaw: It was staffed by men, and men had to eat. The food supply, cut off by Confederate authorities, had dwindled to nearly nothing.351 Kindle readers highlighted this
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“Perhaps no other historian has ever rendered the struggle for Sumter in such authoritative detail as Larson does here. . . . Few historians, too, have done a better job of untangling the web of intrigues and counter-intrigues that helped provoke the eventual attack and surrender.”—The Washington Post
“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . Larson’s great gift is his uncanny ability to spin a chronological story whose ending we already know—secession, rebellion, victory, emancipation and assassination—yet keep the narrative as crisp and suspenseful as an Anthony Horowitz suspense novel. . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal
“The immediacy of the story in The Demon of Unrest—as well as on-the-ground reports from inside South Carolina's Fort Sumter, an early Union bulwark—lend the book vigor.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“[Larson] brings a welcome novelist’s sensibility to his writing. He has an eye for telling details, quick and potent character descriptions and a relentless narrative momentum.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A thoughtful account that also offers a sobering reminder of how humans often don’t see a catastrophe coming until it’s too late.”—The Independent
“So many volumes have been written about the origins of the American Civil War that one might heave a sigh at the thought of yet another, but Larson has found a genuinely original way of telling the story—and storytelling, on the basis of serious research, is what he does well.”—The Telegraph
“Engagingly written and fraught with tension . . . The Demon of Unrest will add to Larson’s luster as one of the great historical-nonfiction writers of our time. . . . [A] literary masterwork.”—National Review
“Erik Larson’s latest book brings new life to an old war. The Demon of Unrest, [his] vivid depiction of the lead-up to the Civil War, is a masterclass in reportage and storytelling.”—Garden and Gun
“An all-too-prescient tale of tension and tragedy, clashing egos, miscommunication, power, and betrayal.”—People
“Even diehard Civil War aficionados will learn from [The Demon of Unrest]. . . . A riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult.”—Los Angeles Times
“Twisty and cinematic . . . A mesmerizing and disconcerting look at an era when consensus dissolved into deadly polarization.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The oars were audible before the boat came into view, this despite a noisy wind that coarsened the waters of the bay. It was very late on a black night. The rain, according to one account, “fell in torrents, and the wind howled weird-like and drearily.” In recent weeks the weather had been erratic: seductively vernal one day, bone-wrackingly cold the next. One morning there was snow. For a week a strong gale had scoured the coast. The four enslaved men rowing the boat made steady progress despite the wind and chop, and hauled their cargo—three white Confederate officers—with seeming ease. They covered the distance from Charleston to the fortress in about forty-five minutes. Until recently, a big lantern incorporating the latest in Fresnel lenses had capped the fort’s lighthouse, but in preparing for war, Army engineers had moved it. Now the lantern stood elevated on trestles at the center of the enclosed grounds, the “parade,” where it lit the interior faces of the surrounding fifty-foot walls and the rumps of giant cannon facing out through ground-level casemates. From afar, at night, in the mist, the light transformed the fortress into an immense cauldron steaming with pale smoke. The boat reached its wharf at twelve forty-five a.m., Friday, April 12, 1861, destined to be the single-most consequential day in American history.
Over the last 113 days, the fort’s commander, Maj. Robert Anderson, and his garrison of U.S. Army regulars, along with a cadre of men under Capt. John G. Foster of the Army Corps of Engineers, had transformed it from a cluttered relic into an edifice of death and destruction. It was still drastically undermanned. Designed to be staffed by 650 soldiers, it now had only seventy-five, including officers, enlisted men, engineers, and members of the regimental band. But its guns were ready, nested within and atop its walls. Also, five large cannon had been mounted on makeshift platforms in the parade and pointed skyward to serve as mortars, these capable of throwing explosive shells into Charleston itself.
In those 113 days, this fortress, named for Thomas Sumter, a Revolutionary War hero, had become a profoundly dangerous place to invade and could have resisted attack quite possibly forever, but for one fatal flaw: It was staffed by men, and men had to eat. The food supply, cut off by Confederate authorities, had dwindled to nearly nothing.
Anderson was fifty-five years old, with a wife, Eliza (known universally as Eba), three daughters, and a one-year-old son, also named Robert. Anderson was clean-shaven, rare for the time, and this helped impart to his face a pleasant openness very unlike the hollow, axe-handle aspect of his Confederate opponent across the bay, his friend and former pupil Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, who had taken command of all South Carolina military activities. Their relationship was courteous and cordial, almost warm, despite Beauregard’s obvious willingness to kill Anderson and all his men if it meant furthering the cause of Southern independence.
Anderson adored his family and mourned the separation from them that was so often required by the Army. Thanks to income from Eba’s family, they lived a life they could not have afforded on his salary alone. They owned a house on West Ninth Street in New York, but with Anderson’s rising notoriety, Eba and the children moved into the nearby Brevoort House hotel, a luxurious five-story structure on Fifth Avenue. Their daughters went to boarding school in New Jersey, a measure meant, apparently, to ease the burden of child-rearing for Eba, who suffered from an indeterminate chronic illness, which Anderson in one letter described as her “long continued indisposition.”
Eba’s condition made Anderson all the more attentive to her. “What would I not give to know that you passed a comfortable night, and that you feel much better this morning,” he wrote on one occasion. He was prone to loving endearments. “I do not know what I should do without you, my precious pet,” or simply “my precious,” or “my own dear little wife.” To save her the physical strain of writing letters, he proposed a pact: He would continue to write to her every day in multipage, diary-like accounts, but she would be obligated to write to him only once a week.
Anderson was a deeply religious man. To Eba: “I pray that Our Heavenly Father may, ere long, rejoice my old heart by restoring you to health, such that we may be together as long as we live.” He summoned the beneficence of God even in formal reports to the War Department. One of his officers wrote, “I never met a man who trusts more quietly and at the same time more contentedly upon the efficacy of prayer.” Lately a consistent element of his prayers was a plea that war would not come.
On the stillest nights, at nine o’clock, Major Anderson could hear the great bells in the distant witch-cap spire of St. Michael’s Church, bastion of Charleston society where planters displayed rank by purchasing pews. It stood adjacent to Ryan’s Slave Mart, and each night rang the “negro curfew” to alert the city’s enslaved and free Blacks that they had thirty minutes to return to their quarters, lest the nightly “slave patrol” find them and lock them in the guard house until morning.
Charleston was a central hub in the domestic slave trade, which in the wake of a fifty-year-old federal ban on international trading now thrived and accounted for much of the city’s wealth. The “Slave Schedule” of the 1860 U.S. Census listed 440 South Carolina planters who each held one hundred or more enslaved Blacks within a single district, this when the average number owned per slave-holding household nationwide was 10.2. In 1860, the South as a whole had 3.95 million slaves. One South Carolina family, the descendants of Nathaniel Heyward, owned over three thousand, of whom 2,590 resided within the state.
Together these planters constituted a kind of aristocracy and saw themselves as such. They called themselves “the chivalry.” As the prominent South Carolina planter James Henry Hammond put it, they were “the nearest to noblemen of any possible in America.” This idea was affirmed on a daily basis by the fact of their possession of, and dominion over, a subservient population of enslaved Blacks. But with this also came a deep fear that this population over which they exercised such stern rule might one day rise in rebellion. The 1860 federal census found that the state had 111,000 more enslaved people than it did whites; it was, moreover, one of only two states where this kind of imbalance existed, the other being Mississippi. Free and enslaved Blacks together accounted for over 40 percent of the population of South Carolina’s chief city, Charleston, and this caused uneasiness among its white citizens. Planters built what were in effect backyard plantations with two or more out-structures housing kitchens, stables, and slave quarters and surrounded by high walls to limit the dangers of insurrection and midnight murder. Any enslaved person who worked outside these walls had to wear a special badge, a metal medallion—square, round, octagonal—stamped “Charleston,” with the year, type of job, and an identification number pinned to clothing or hung around the neck. The effect of this overwhelming slave presence was immediately evident to travelers from the North. “How strange the aspect of this city!” one such visitor observed. “Every street corner, and door-sill filled with blacks; blacks driving the drays & carriages, blacks carrying burdens, blacks tending children & vending articles on the sidewalks; blacks doing all.”
Not only did the state’s planters call themselves “the chivalry”; they devoured chivalric novels, like Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. They held jousting competitions, called “heads and rings,” where a rider bearing the name of one of Scott’s or Tennyson’s knights, wearing knightly garb and holding a long lance, would ride at full gallop and attempt to spear a series of dangling metal rings as small as half an inch in diameter, then draw his saber to take an exuberant swipe at the head of an inanimate figure at the end of the course. The chivalry gave themselves military titles and favored elaborate uniforms. Their South Carolina standard-bearer, novelist William Gilmore Simms, wrote eighty-two novels in which chivalry and honor were central themes. Chivalry, to him, meant “gallantry, stimulated by courage, warmed by enthusiasm, and refined by courtesy.” The chivalry valued honor above all human traits and would happily kill to sustain it, but only in accord with the rules set out in the Code Duello, which specified exactly how a man suffering an abrasion of honor could challenge and, if he wished, murder another.
Product details
- ASIN : B0CDKLBD2W
- Publisher : Crown (April 30, 2024)
- Publication date : April 30, 2024
- Language : English
- File size : 3446 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 559 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #345 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1 in Biographies of US Presidents
- #1 in Civil War History of the U.S.
- #2 in History (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author
Erik Larson is the author of six previous national bestsellers—The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm—which have collectively sold more than twelve million copies. His books have been published in nearly forty countries.
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Customers find the book thoroughly researched and engaging. They also describe the storyline as well-told and good. Opinions are mixed on the plot, with some finding it suspenseful and enthralling, while others say it lacks perspective. Readers also disagree on the story and characters, with others finding them compelling and others unimportant. They disagree on pacing, with one finding it well-paced and the other finding it slow.
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Customers find the storyline well-told, interesting, and fast paced. They also appreciate the author's ability to maintain a deft explanation of events without insinuating himself. Readers also mention that the book is divided into 7 parts and has smaller chapters that pack a punch.
"A really well-told story that couches the background, and lead up of the civil war in a relatable context...." Read more
"...Otherwise, this is a very worthy investment of time for history lovers!" Read more
"...He authors another winning work of narrative nonfiction detailing the events following the 1860 presidential election that propelled Abraham Lincoln..." Read more
"...It's written like an exciting, page-turning fictional novel but it's real history!..." Read more
Customers find the book thoroughly researched, well written, and interesting. They say it provides a great sense of the social climate and an excellent source for the Civil War. Readers also say the book is unbiased and factual, with technical skill that provides coherence.
"...Very relevant to what is happening in the US today...." Read more
"...If I could give this book a 4.5 out of 5, I would. Larson's research was impressive and obviously thorough...." Read more
"...This was an excellent, detailed and long account of the events leading up to the beginning of our Civil War...." Read more
"Erik Larson's "The Demon of Unrest," his latest best seller, is an unbiased, decidedly factual history of the taking of Fort Sumter by the nascent..." Read more
Customers find the writing style well written, moving things along well, and capturing the spirit of humanity of all the main characters. They also say the author artfully weaves first-hand accounts of several people from varying statuses in both countries. Readers say the book makes it easy to picture the physical challenges of the first steps of the conflict.
"...Very relevant to what is happening in the US today. The author moves things along really well, while really giving you the chance to get to know..." Read more
"...Fort Sumter was vividly described and easily allowed readers to visualize the site, even for those who have never been here in person...." Read more
"...Larson writes fluidly but concisely, some chapters only a few pages long, and his sturdy vocabulary challenges readers to be Merriam-Webster-ready...." Read more
"...You'll learn a great deal by reading this thoughtful, "fair" record of the 30+ years of events that led to the opening clash at Fort Sumter." Read more
Customers appreciate the masterful craftsmanship of the book. They say it's outstanding and a masterfully constructed puzzle.
"...arch successionist Ruffin and the leadership on both sides are well sourced and written by a master...." Read more
"Erik Larson does his usual, wonderful craftsmanship of building a picture of the players and situations which lead up to the Civil War...." Read more
"...to the essentials leading to the civil war, thoughtfully presented and stark; I could not put this down!." Read more
"It was such a well done book, really putting you in the middle of turmoil of the pre-civil war time" Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the plot. Some find it suspenseful, exciting, and sad, while others say it's unfocused and poorly written.
"The one disappointment for me was the lack of perspective on the other Federal fort that played such a key role in this story -- Ft Pickens outside..." Read more
"...There is intrigue, drama and action, all well told...." Read more
"...the action just bogs down in spots to the point of tedium and real suspense is lacking...." Read more
"...Larson’s narrative serves as a cautionary tale, reminding us of the dangers of division and the importance of unity in our current social and..." Read more
Customers are mixed about the pacing. Some find it well paced and quick, while others say it's slow and tedious. They also say the writing doesn't move smoothly and has zero momentum.
"...For such a war-related event the pacing and the action just bogs down in spots to the point of tedium and real suspense is lacking...." Read more
"...A good, quick read!" Read more
"...interesting subject matter and I learned a lot, but this book moved too slow for me. It’s about 350 pages before the actual siege starts...." Read more
"...Unfortunately it just doesn’t move smoothly. Reading it felt like homework. I learned a lot but it was an effort to finish...." Read more
Customers are mixed about the story and characters. Some mention that the narrative is compelling and the key players are portrayed well, while others say that there are too many unimportant characters.
"...Additionally, he brilliantly animates the famous characters of this period (Buchanan, Lincoln, Seward, and Davis) and lesser names such as Edmund..." Read more
"...His cast of characters is wide ranging and superb in context; Presidents Lincoln and Buchanan, the warriors, Major Robert Anderson, Abner Doubleday..." Read more
"...But on the whole the book relies too much on a few main characters that really add little to the narrative - too..." Read more
"...of historical documents to add color to history works extremely well to understand the characters in the book...." Read more
Customers find the book disjointed and hard to follow. They also say it's less effective when it tries to get into broader issues.
"...The book is less effective, I feel, when it tries to get into the broader issues causing the War...." Read more
"...waffling, procrastination and indecision at all levels is aggravatingly frustrating. Regardless, I found it an informitive and enjoyable read." Read more
"...It tended to be somewhat repetitious and did lend itself to multiple short chapters. Overall pretty good." Read more
"...It was quite tedious." Read more
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If you want to know a little more about the time, the politics, and the people involved on both sides, as well as a better understanding of how and why the nation was fractured leading up to, and during the war, and even why it is relevant today, I recommend this book highly.
Fort Sumter was vividly described and easily allowed readers to visualize the site, even for those who have never been here in person. My only negative for the book is that I felt some of the side stories could have been minimized just to keep the focus on the war. Ms. Mary Chestnut's storyline in particular I didn't feel contributed much to the story of Fort Sumter and the start of the Civil War, but would be an excellent basis for any number of spin-off stories about life in that era and/or in Charleston.
If I could give this book a 4.5 out of 5, I would. Larson's research was impressive and obviously thorough. My only point deduction comes from the length that I think could have been cleaned up a little bit. Otherwise, this is a very worthy investment of time for history lovers!
From his extensive research, the author quotes from speeches, letters, diary entries, and other period documents revealing unapologetic pro-slavery sentiment. Through these Southerners' thoughts and comments, we learn just how, like Kudzu, slavery became wildly entwined with Southern culture. No matter how inexplicable or indefensible their position might be today, in the mid-19th century, these Americans believed it was their birthright to continue owning other human beings in the name of tradition and because slavery was so much a part of the Southern culture and rural economy. More importantly, with "The Demon of Unrest," Larson sheds light on how charged the issue of slavery was in the years leading up to Lincoln's election and, therefore, how inevitable secession would become.
As always, the author’s character development is first-rate. Perhaps best of all is his treatment of Major Robert Anderson, a career U.S. Army officer and one of the central characters appearing throughout “The Demon of Unrest.” Anderson, the Fort Sumter, South Carolina commander, and gallant American patriot of the first order, became one of the early heroes of this period. We witness his painstaking preparations to fortify Fort Sumter, a U.S. Army garrison and initial Union stronghold, key terrain in the middle of Charleston Harbor and the annals of U.S. history. He and his charges remain alone on an island, steadfastly defending American ideals. Their challenge becomes existential on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates bombard the fort and two days later force its surrender to start the war.
Claiming three-quarters of a million lives, the American Civil War, or the War Between the States, was a watershed event, the legacy with which we, as Americans, still live today. In addition to the author’s signature ability to capture the mood of a particular period or incident in history, Larson fans will recognize his trademark emphasis on meticulously mining historical documents to bring the story to life, for instance, capturing seemingly insignificant comments and minor actions of the characters so that we see that they, like us, were fully human. In detailing their activities, Larson transports us to an earlier age during which honor and chivalry in the Antebellum South held sway. Then, negotiations deadlocked, both sides determined not to move off their hardened positions, the nation tilts to war, and we readers have a ringside seat. The author helps us see firsthand how the Civil War, which resulted in more than 600,000 casualties over four years, was virtually a foregone conclusion.
Larson writes fluidly but concisely, some chapters only a few pages long, and his sturdy vocabulary challenges readers to be Merriam-Webster-ready. His strength is pacing; he allows events to unfold in a way that captures the reader's attention and holds it transfixed for page after page. Like all his books, “The Demon of Unrest” reads like the story is happening in real-time. Larson achieves his objective; he sounds the alarm that another collapse into chaos is not far-fetched. Unrest in America is mounting.
One reads "The Demon of Unrest" with his mouth agape, incredulous that these events happened and could happen again. Worry, anxiety, and fear grip the nation today just as they did in the deeply divided America of 1861. South Carolina, specifically Charleston, became ground zero for American turning on American and friend becoming foe. A charming U.S. city seemingly overnight morphed into a powder keg.
Indeed, 1861 brought us a national Hatfield-McCoy moment, the American family riven by disagreement and debate. When considering our shrill and uncompromising public discourse and eroding confidence in U.S. government institutions today, readers of "The Demon of Unrest" can appreciate how easily the situation could devolve into another armed conflict.
Above all else, Larson’s "The Demon of Unrest" reminds Americans that we must, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "appeal to the better angels of our nature."
This book delves deeply into the social, political and economic issues that eventually led to that awful war. It's written like an exciting, page-turning fictional novel but it's real history! People you've never heard of MASSIVELY influenced those issues I mentioned. You'll learn that Northerners held plenty of slaves and not everyone north of Maryland wanted that to stop. You'll learn how the South feared that Abolition would ruin them financially and socially.
You'll learn a great deal by reading this thoughtful, "fair" record of the 30+ years of events that led to the opening clash at Fort Sumter.
Top reviews from other countries
Microscopically detailed, bringing the reader into the most minute and grinding details of those virtually imprisoned in the Fort.
Covers thoroughly the misperceptions of those involved, on both sides. I've read a number of sound books on the topic, but this one brings one face-to-face with the thoughts, perceptions, context of understandings, of specific participants, as well as the general publics.
What stuck me most, in the context of current events involving the Supreme Court of our day, is the influence that one corrupt? ill-intentioned? biased Supreme Court judge had on the overall progress towards a continuingly divisive national war.
And the enduring nature of its ... evolution. The tenacity of the under-lying myths and false values.
Another excellent work by Mr. Larson--I'm grateful.
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!