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The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War Hardcover – April 30, 2024
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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.
- Print length592 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCrown
- Publication dateApril 30, 2024
- Dimensions6.41 x 1.5 x 9.53 inches
- ISBN-100385348746
- ISBN-13978-0385348744
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- Jilted at the altar of the Railroad Age, South Carolina had retreated into its own world of indolence and myth.Highlighted by 870 Kindle readers
- “No, sir, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King.”Highlighted by 861 Kindle readers
- 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.Highlighted by 525 Kindle readers
- 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.Highlighted by 324 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
![Larson brings to life the 5 months between the election of Lincoln and the start of the Civil War](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/aplus-media-library-service-media/729a6dcf-7b2a-47ca-9a7b-d79055369304.__CR0,0,970,600_PT0_SX970_V1___.jpg)
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“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
- Publisher : Crown; First Edition (April 30, 2024)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 592 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385348746
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385348744
- Item Weight : 1.9 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.41 x 1.5 x 9.53 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #51 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in American Civil War Biographies (Books)
- #2 in US Presidents
- #2 in U.S. Civil War History
- Customer Reviews:
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A Riveting Read Capturing The Tension of History!
Austin Meshell
About the author
![Erik Larson](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A10T0AdfejL._SY600_.jpg)
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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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book worth reading, with thorough research and a strong play-by-play narrative. They also describe the book as a great read with a good narrative that keeps their interest. Readers describe the writing style as highly engaging and personal. They appreciate the compelling portrayals of key players and the use of historical documents, journal entries, and other first hand accounts.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the writing style highly engaging, solid, and skillful. They also say the author artfully weaves the first-hand accounts of several people from varying statuses. Readers describe the book as instructive, direct, and personal.
"...I'd describe it as instructionally direct and articulate. Learned much more than I ever expected...." 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
"...The book is written in a highly engaging format and is hard to put down." Read more
"...He authors another winning work of narrative nonfiction detailing the events following the 1860 presidential election that propelled Abraham Lincoln..." Read more
Customers find the book compelling, factual, and interesting throughout. They also say the narrative serves as a cautionary tale and captures the tragic mistakes.
"Enjoyed the whole thing. It's a hard topic and Larson made it interesting throughout. I'd describe it as instructionally direct and articulate...." Read more
"...The story is very detailed and is based on diaries, journals, correspondence and news reports during this time...." Read more
"...The author has extensively researched the topic and provides a compelling story of characters both familiar (e.g. Abraham Lincoln) and not who..." 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 find the book's depth of research and attention to detail outstanding. They also say it gives a clear insight into the mindset of the South and their views on slavery. Customers describe the book as interesting, comprehensive, and excellent. They say it fills them with both fascination and fear, and that it's an unbiased, factual history.
"...Learned much more than I ever expected. Larson deeply filled one of the gaps in my understanding of the period leading to the war." 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
"Full of detail about the events preceding the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter...." Read more
Customers find the book well-researched, entertaining, and worth the read.
"...Otherwise, this is a very worthy investment of time for history lovers!" Read more
"...This was an excellent, detailed and long account of the events leading up to the beginning of our Civil War...." Read more
"As said elsewhere, his books are always interesting and comprehensive, and this one is no exception...." Read more
"...Upon completion of the book... I'll say it was worth the read, but not his best work...." Read more
Customers find the book provides a great read into that most difficult time. They also say the short chapters propel them through the book.
"...This was an excellent, detailed and long account of the events leading up to the beginning of our Civil War...." Read more
"...Interesting, fast paced, and keeps the readers interested...." Read more
"...A good, quick read!" Read more
"...This is a must-read for everyone; especially those of us who constantly see history repeat itself but can’t always draw on the past to prove it." Read more
Customers find the story compelling, with compelling portrayals of the key players. They also appreciate the author's exceptional skill as a historian and storyteller.
"...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 are mixed about the perspective. Some mention it provides a unique look at the war between the states, while others say it's too unfocused and lacks perspective on the other Federal fort.
"...Good history but too unfocused." Read more
"...Taking the bias out of the story, it still is a good look at the events from the Lincoln election though the Spring of 1861, with a short look at..." Read more
"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
"...It gives a unique look at the war between the states." 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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The story is very detailed and is based on diaries, journals, correspondence and news reports during this time.
Larson identifies the leading proponents of secession: James Henry Hammond, of South Carolina, owner of over 300 slaves, and Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia. Larson also notes the raid on Harper’s Ferry by John Brown in 1859 and the effect it had on the entire south on the subject of secession.
The story then goes on to the period from Lincoln’s election to the fall of Fort Sumter.
Starting with South Carolina’s first debate on secession through the act itself on December 20, 1860, and their intent to seize all federal property and arms in the state, the fate of Fort Sumter was a major dilemma. Situated in the center of Charleston harbor it controlled ingress and egress to Charleston. South Carolina, considering themselves an independent nation, sent a delegation to Washington to negotiate relinquishing the fort to South Carolina; however, even President Buchanan knew formally negotiating with South Carolina would be seen as recognizing their independence. Throughout the whole crisis Buchanan did nothing decisive wishing to leave the crisis to the new President after he was inaugurated on March 4.
Meanwhile, South Carolina, joined by the other states as they seceded, were building and fortifying batteries surrounding Fort Sumter.
Even after Lincoln’s inauguration confusion, misunderstood orders and uncertainty of what action to take delayed any attempt to reinforce and resupply the fort; even when an attempt was finally made in April confusion on who had the authority to assign the navy ships to the mission meant that the Powhatan, the most powerful warship in the Navy, did not take part in the expedition.
The relief fleet arrived too late to save the fort.
This was an excellent, detailed and long account of the events leading up to the beginning of our Civil War. All of the important people leading up to this crisis were identified and their roles explained. This book is worth reading for those who want to know how to avoid such a crisis in the future.
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!
Top reviews from other countries
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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.
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
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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!
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)