Cry Havoc!
The Crooked Road to Civil War, 1861
-
- £2.99
-
- £2.99
Publisher Description
A "compact, engrossing narrative"* that vividly reimagines the events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War
What separates historian Nelson D. Lankford's engaging examination of the causes of the Civil War from other books on the subject is its willingness to consider the alternative possibilities to history. Cry Havoc! recounts in riveting detail the small quirks of timing, character, and place that influenced the huge trajectory of events during eight critical weeks from Lincoln's inauguration through the explosion at Fort Sumter and the embattled president's response to it. It addresses the what-ifs, the might-have-beens, and the individual personalities that played into circumstances-a chain of indecisions and miscalculations, influenced by swollen vanity and wishful thinking-that gave shape to the dreadful conflict to come.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Might-have-beens haunt this absorbing study of the opening act of the Civil War. Historian Lankford (Richmond Burning) focuses on March and April of 1861, months when the future, he feels, was up for grabs. The crucial political struggle then, he argues, was for the Upper South: the eight slave states that had not yet joined the newborn Confederacy, where pro-Union sentiment was initially strong and whose loyalties would decide the war. Lankford minutely examines critical events and their effect on Upper South Unionists and the debate over secession, particularly in Virginia and Maryland, emphasizing the importance of individual decision-making in this volatile period. For him, history is contingency if Lincoln had evacuated Fort Sumter without a fight, or not called up troops to suppress the rebellion, or if Lincoln's generals had treated Maryland less gently, then the Upper South might have remained loyal, or neutral, or plumped more decisively either for the Union or the Confederacy. His underlying historiographical point that the conflict might have been finessed so as to save the Union without a devastating war is a none-too-convincing imponderable. But it frames a lucid, often dramatic account of how the nation's confusion and anxiety finally gelled into clear-cut lines of battle. Photos.
