Mr. Lincoln Goes to War
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
An account of how America’s greatest crisis began, by “the Civil War’s master historical detective” (Stephen W. Sears, author of Chancellorsville).
This groundbreaking book investigates the mystery of how the Civil War began, reconsidering the big question: Was it inevitable?
The award-winning author of Andersonville and Lincoln’s Autocrat vividly recreates President Abraham Lincoln’s first year in office, from his inauguration through the rising crisis of secession and the first several months of the war. Drawing on original sources and examining previously overlooked factors, he leads the reader inexorably to the conclusion that Lincoln not only missed opportunities to avoid war but actually fanned the flames—and often acted unconstitutionally in prosecuting the war once it had begun. With a keen eye for the telling detail, on the battlefield as well as in the White House, this is revisionist history at its best, not sparing anyone, even Abraham Lincoln.
“A brilliant narrative that reveals the possibilities of the past that were squandered by historical figures who seem so unassailable and godlike to us today.” —Peter S. Carmichael, author of The Last Generation
“The most provocative account of events in 1861 in a generation. Readers who think they understand the Civil War’s first year and the roles played by Abraham Lincoln, Nathanial Lyon, Charles Stone, and a host of others should brace themselves for a bold new perspective.” —A. Wilson Greene, author of Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Establishing slavery as the Civil War's central issue has fostered an acceptance of the conflict's inevitability among academic and popular historians alike. Marvel, author of several prize-winning books on the Civil War (Lee's Last Retreat, etc.), combines an iconoclastic approach with extensive research to challenge this conventional wisdom. Focusing on the North's road to war in 1861, he argues that Abraham Lincoln made armed force a first choice, rather than a last resort, in addressing the Union's breakup. While conceding the complex problems Lincoln faced, and the corresponding limitations on his options, Marvel describes the president's course of action as "destructive and unimaginative." The confrontation at Fort Sumter ended any chance of avoiding conflict, he writes, and the North's amateurish conduct of initial military operations, culminating in the defeats at Bull Run, Wilson's Creek and Ball's Bluff, encouraged an emerging Confederacy's belief that war was its best option. More generally, Lincoln's early and comprehensive infringement of such constitutional rights as habeas corpus set dangerous precedents for future autocratic executives. Marvel's characterization of Lincoln as a victim of tunnel vision, who launched a war without considering how devastating it might become, incorporates a certain present-mindedness. His willingness to consider the positive prospects of accepting secession is informed by a barely concealed subtext: the existence of the United States as we know it has not been an unmixed blessing. This well-constructed, comprehensively documented revisionist exercise merits consideration and reflection. Drawings, maps, halftones.
