03417cam a2200397 i 4500 1172014736 TxAuBib 20240320120000.0 240108s2024||||||||||||d|||||||||||eng|u 9780593861837 PAP 37.00 0593861833 PAP 37.00 (OCoLC)1428821758 TxAuBib rda Larson, Erik, author. The demon of unrest [large print] : a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War / Erik Larson. Saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War. Large print edition. New York, NY : Random House Large Print, 2024. 861 pages (large print) : map ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. A boat in the dark -- The best of all worlds -- Treachery in the wind -- Precipice -- Journey -- Coercion -- Collision -- Fire! -- Epilogue : a toast -- Coda : blood among the tulip trees. On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor 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 powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter-a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them." At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable-one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink-a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late. 20240320. jz. Lincoln, Abraham 1809-1865. Presidents United States Election 1860. Large type books. Large print books. United States History Civil War, 1861-1865 Causes. United States Politics and government 1857-1861. United States History 1849-1877. Fort Sumter (Charleston, S.C.) Siege, 1861.