The Demon of Unrest

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson  592 pp.

Once again Erik Larson has taken a seminal event in history and delved into the deeper surrounding and causes leading up to it. This time it is the events leading up to the American Civil War that he has written about in details that the average person would not know. Gleaned from information taken from government documents, communiques, letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts, Larson has created a surprising readable account of the days beginning with Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency and ending with the attack and surrender of Fort Sumter which began the war. The dissention in Congress over the issue of slavery and the belief of the slave states that Lincoln would abolish slavery, which was not his intention, led to the eventual secession of states from the United States. The main players in this book are Major Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter and a former slave owner, Edmund Ruffin who makes it his life's ambition to stir up violent pro-slavery excitement whenever possible, Mary Boykin Chesnut whose diary about the social details of the "Chivalry" of the South and Charleston in the days leading up to and during the Civil War, and Lincoln, the President who tried to prevent the war but was too often thwarted by his own Secretary of State, William Seward as well as the unreliability of long distance communication. The audiobook was read by Will Patton who does an adequate job but it could have been better.