Mr. Lincoln Goes to War
by William Marvel
Summary
This exciting work of groundbreaking history investigates the mystery of how the Civil War began, reconsidering the big question: Was it inevitable? Marvel vividly depicts President 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, Marvel 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. The story unfolds with Marvel’s keen eye for the telling detail, on the battlefield as well as in the White House. This is revisionist history at its best and necessary reading for Civil War and Lincoln devotees alike
Excerpt
Songs for a Prelude
In culture and climate, Washington City belonged to the South, and as 1861 opened many feared that it might become part of a Southern confederacy, as well. Those who deplored the prospect ruefully observed that the government of the United States held power there only by popular assent: except for a few Marines and an ordnance company, no organized troops stood by to enforce federal authority. An armed mob could have driven congressmen and senators from their respective chambers, evicted the president from the executive mansion, and forced the United States government into exile north of the Mason-Dixon Line. That January there would have been little anyone could have done to prevent it. Most of the army manned outposts scattered along the Southern coast or across the western frontier, weeks or months away from the smoky saloons and hotel rooms where statesmen and scoundrels negotiated the nation’s future.
As the new year progressed and Abraham Lincoln prepared to assume the presidency, key officials began to worry about an armed assault against the federal presence on the Potomac. Terrified that the election of a Republican president threatened their slave-based agricultural economy with containment and extinction, political barons in the Deep South had convinced five state conventions to renounce their ties to the Union by January 19, and most of the remaining slave states had begun debating the expediency of their own withdrawal. The secession of one slave state only encouraged others to follow, for with that initial secession the South’s balance of power in the United States Senate evaporated. Appalled at the desertion of their Dixie comrades, border-state senators proposed complicated compromises and constitutional conventions with the hope of forming a still-more-perfect union, but hotter heads prevailed.1 On January 9 South Carolina volunteers had fired on the Star of the West when that unarmed vessel tried to supply the federal garrison of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, and an infuriated North had risen in a nonpartisan outcry for blood. The commander o New York’s associated veterans of the War of 1812 even offered the services of his superannuated comrades in defense of the government, and he may have intended more than a symbolic gesture, considering that the seat of government lacked any practical protection. Striving to maintain peace in his final weeks as president, James Buchanan declined to redress the national insult. His inactivity allowed the crisis to abate, but then Southern militiamen aggravated the offense when they began seizing United States forts and arsenals in the seceded states. On January 24 hundreds of Georgia troops compelled the garrison of the Augusta Arsenal to surrender; on that same day, the commanding general of the U.S. Army made arrangements for at least token reinforcements in the federal capital.2
Copyright © 2006 by William Marvel. Reprinted with permission by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Reviews
“This well-constructed, comprehensively documented revisionist exercise merits consideration and reflection”—Publishers Weekly
“This provocative book will fuel the current raging debates on presidential powers…Highly recommended”—Library Journal
“Sure to touch off discussion, if not controversy, in professional circles; readers with a penchant for iconoclasm will want to have a look, too”—Kirkus Reviews
Author's Biography
William Marvel is the author of Lee’s Last Retreat, A Place Called Appomattox, Andersonville, and half a dozen other acclaimed books on the Civil War. He has won a Lincoln Prize, a Douglas Southall Freeman Award, and the Bell Award.