BookLife Review by Carol O’Day: The Demon of Unrest (Erik Larson, author)
Non-fiction, military history, Fort Sumter, pre-inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, Robert Anderson, William Seward, SC Secession, Secessionist movement, economics of South planter class, chivalry code.
On the heels of The Devil in the White City, Dead Wake and The Splendid and the Vile, non-fiction author Erik Larson turns his considerable talents to two lesser-told historical stories of the Civil War–-the military history and defence of Fort Sumter and the Secession from the Union of Southern states, specifically focusing on the Secession of South Carolina. In The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War is the result of his efforts. Larson plumbs a wide range of primary sources ( diaries, military records, government communiques, slave ledgers and memoranda, plantation records, and more) to weave the tale and illuminate history with it.
At the heart of the story, just off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, sits the federal property known as Fort Sumter. Major Robert Anderson is the Union officer charged with the oversight and defense of Fort Sumter. The records and words of not only Major Anderson, but of newly-elected President Abraham Lincoln, conflicted Secretary of State William Seward, and South Carolinian and Charleston socialite Mary Boykin Chesnut, as well as other military leaders and enlisted men, also add to the narrative of this book.
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War takes its title from the words of Dennis Hart Mahan, a West Point professor, who commented that it was the disruption of the established wealth of the planter and slave owning class in South Carolina that foreshadowed the Civil War, “But when commerce, manufacturers, the mechanic arts disturbed this condition of things, and amassed wealth that could pretend to mure lavish luxury than planting, then came in, I fear, this demon of unrest which has been the utmost sole disturber of the land for years past.” Much has been said about the movement to abolish slavery as the cataclysmic cause of the Civil War. But Larson details the ways in which the triggers and events leading to the Civil War were both much more complex than a simplistic single issue, even one as momentous as the ownership of one human being by another. Larson documents that the movement to end slavery was inextricably intertwined by two other realities. The notion of eliminating slavery posed a direct threat to the continued wealth of Southern planters. Their wealth depended wholly and directly on their ownership of human beings whom they could abuse as free labor for their own economic gain. Second, that notion that the enslavement of human beings was immoral and therefore should not be tolerated in the United States, was in direct opposition to the closely-held, racist white supremacist beliefs of the white planter class of the South.
In addition to the fundamental division of beliefs surrounding slavery held by the Northern Union States and the Southern planter states, Larson pulls back the wool on the other factors that contributed to the commencement of the Civil War. First, Abraham Lincoln was elected on November 6, 1890. His inauguration was not held until March of 1861 (a change from modern day January inaugurations). That five month lag period allowed sentiments, pro-slavery and abolition of slavery, pro-Lincoln, pro-Union and secession, to fester and to foment dissent in a leadership vacuum. Outgoing President Buchanan assiduously labored to not stir the waters. Current and remaining Secretary of State, himself an unsuccessful candidate for President, William Seward, was duplicitous at best, courting the favor of Southern politicians who owned enslaved people. The inexorable slow march of time and snail-like pace of communication during the 1860s contributed to ongoing uncertainty and often missed or misunderstood communications. Messages and communications, even official Presidential, Administration or military communiques were largely delivered in person, as the new technology known as the telegraph was considered unreliable, corruptible and open to spying.Personal delivery of messages from Lincoln’s home state of Illinois to Washington DC or from DC to Charleston and Fort Sumter took days or sometimes weeks to move from sender to recipient. Moreover, for five months, President Lincoln lacked the authority to make official decisions, including military decisions regarding fortifying Fort Sumter and moving troops, supplies and weapons to Southern forts.
My skepticism about reading a 491 page book about the intricacies of events, sentiments and military maneuvers surrounding Fort Sumter, the Secession and arming of South Carolina vanished within pages of beginning. If you enjoy history or historical fiction, military history or just well-researched non-fiction or biography, invest in a copy of The Demon of Unrest and you will rejoice in your wise choice.
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