On November 6\, 1860\, Abraham Lincoln became \;the \;fluky v ictor in a tight race for president. \;The \;country was bitterly at odds\; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying \; the \;Union\, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerl ess to stop them. Slavery fueled \;the \;conflict\, but somehow&nb sp\;the \;passions \;of \;North and South came to focus on a l onely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. ...[An] account& nbsp\;of \;the \;chaotic months between Lincoln's election and&nbs p\;the \;Confederacy's shelling \;of \;Sumter--a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications\, enflamed egos and craven ambitio ns\, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that \;th e \;trials \;of \;these five months were 'so great that\, coul d I have anticipated them\, I would not have believed it possible to survi ve them.' At \;the \;heart \;of \;this ... narrative are M ajor Robert Anderson\, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympath etic to \;the \;South but loyal to \;the \;Union\; Edmund Ruffin\, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at e very opportunity\; and Mary Boykin Chesnut\, wife \;of \;a promine nt planter\, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallel s between them. In \;the \;middle \;of \;it all is \;t he \;overwhelmed Lincoln\, battling with his duplicitous secretary&nbs p\;of \;state\, William Seward\, as he tries desperately to avert a wa r that he fears is inevitable--one that will eventually kill 750\,000 Amer icans. Drawing on diaries\, secret communiques\, slave ledgers\, and plant ation records\, Larson gives us a political horror story. ~From the Catalo g
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