#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the critical five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this "gripping reexamination of a nation in turmoil."

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the unexpected victor in a tight race for the presidency. The country was bitterly divided. Southern extremists were drawing ever closer to the destruction of the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of the North and South focused on a lonely federal fort in the harbor of Charleston: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson provides a compelling account of the tumultuous months between Lincoln's election and the bombardment of Sumter by the Confederacy—a period filled with tragic missteps, misunderstandings, inflamed egos and lesser ambitions, personal tragedies, and betrayals. Lincoln remarked that the trials of those five months were "so great that, had I foreseen them, I would not have believed it possible to survive."

At the center of this turmoil is Colonel Robert Anderson, the commander of Sumter and former slave owner who is sympathetic to the South yet loyal to the Union. Edmund Ruffin, a conceited and bloodthirsty firebrand who fans the spirit of secessionist sentiment at every opportunity. And Mary Boykin Chestnut, the wife of a prominent planter, who is torn between marriage and slavery and sees similarities between the two. At the heart of it all is the beleaguered Lincoln, desperately trying to avoid a war he fears is inevitable—a war that would ultimately cost the lives of 750,000 Americans.

Drawing from diaries, secret documents, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that drove America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often do not see a disaster coming until it is too late.

Pages: 592, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm