1861 (79 page)

Among the many fine books on the run-up to the war, two have particularly shaped my own account. The first of these is Kenneth Stampp’s
And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860–1861
(Louisiana State University Press, 1950); the second is David M. Potter’s equally classic
The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861
(New York: Harper & Row, 1976). For the Peace Conference, see Robert Gray Gunderson’s
Old Gentlemen’s Convention: The Washington Peace Conference of 1861
(University of Wisconsin Press, 1961). Gabor S. Borritt, ed.,
Why the Civil War Came
(Oxford University Press, 1996) offers a number of enlightening essays.

For Abraham Lincoln’s journey to Washington and his activities and political strategy throughout the interim between his election and his inauguration, Harold Holzer’s
Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860–1861
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008) is an authoritative, deeply researched source.

The standard biography of James Garfield is Allan Peskin’s
Garfield: A Biography
(Kent State University Press, 1978). Margaret Leech was working on a biography at the time of her death in 1974, focusing on the social and political world within which her subject lived; she had gotten as far as the Civil War. The book was finished posthumously by Harry J. Brown (unfortunately in a perfunctory fashion) and published as
The Garfield Orbit
(New York: Harper & Row, 1978). The best source on Garfield’s early political career is Robert I. Cottom’s “To Be Among the First: The Early Career of James A. Garfield, 1831–1868” (PhD dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1975). W. W. Wasson’s
James A. Garfield: His Religion and Education.
(Nashville: Tennessee Book Co., 1952) and Hendrik Booraem’s
The Road to Respectability: James A. Garfield and His World, 1844–1852
(Bucknell University Press, 1988) are useful as well.
The Diary of James A. Garfield
(Michigan State University Press, 1967), edited by Harry J. Brown and Frederick D. Williams, is a window into Garfield’s intimate thoughts from his teenage years until the end of his life, although unfortunately he did not maintain the diary consistently during the late 1850s and early 1860s. The best published collection of his writings during that period is Mary L. Hinsdale, ed.,
Garfield-Hinsdale Letters: Correspondence Between James Abram Garfield and Burke Aaron Hinsdale
(University of Michigan Press, 1949). The Library of Congress’s immense collection of Garfield’s papers, along with another significant deposit at the Western Reserve Historical Society, contain more information about the twentieth president than almost any historian has ever wanted to know.

The fascinating cultural history of nineteenth-century Ohio (I am aware that this phrase may strike some readers as an oxymoron) unfolds elegantly in a book by Andrew R. L. Cayton,
Ohio: The History of a People
(Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 2002). For the Civil War in Ohio, see David Van Tassel,
“Beyond Bayonets”: The Civil War in Northern Ohio
(Kent State University Press, 2006); as well as Eric J. Cardinal, “The Ohio Democracy and the Crisis of Disunion, 1860–1861,”
Ohio History,
vol. 86, no. 1 (Winter 1977). The most thorough sources on the Disciples movement are Henry K. Shaw,
Buckeye Disciples: A History of the Disciples of Christ in Ohio
(St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1952); and A. S. Hayden,
Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio
(Cincinnati: Chase & Hall, 1875).

For the prewar Northern ideology of individualism, personal freedom, and
egalitarianism, see Earl J. Hess,
Liberty, Virtue, and Progress: Northerners and Their War for the Union
(2nd ed., Fordham University Press, 1997). The classic treatment of the growth of free-soil republicanism and the birth of the Republican Party is Eric Foner’s
Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War
(2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 1995). The cultural underpinnings of the Union cause are explored in James M. McPherson’s
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
(Oxford University Press, 1997) and in Susan-Mary Grant’s
North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era
(University Press of Kansas, 2000), which is especially incisive in its analysis of how Northerners contrasted their culture to that of the South. Also see Melinda Lawson,
Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North
(University Press of Kansas, 2002).

The abolitionist movement in Ohio is chronicled in William Cheek and Annie Lee Cheek,
John Mercer Langston and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1829–1865
(University of Illinois Press, 1989). Dorothy Sterling’s
Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991) is the best biography of that fiery crusader.

For sources on Fort Sumter, see under Prologue, above.

Thomas Bartel’s
Abner Doubleday: A Civil War Biography
(Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2010) and JoAnn Smith Bartlett’s
Abner Doubleday: His Life and Times: Looking Beyond the Myth
(Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris Corporation, 2009) are the only two biographies of baseball’s noninventor. Richard Wagner’s
For Honor, Flag, and Family: Civil War Major General Samuel W. Crawford, 1827–1892
(Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Books, 2005) treats Sumter’s surgeon. Edward M. Coffman’s
The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898
(Oxford University Press, 1986) is a vivid and well-analyzed portrayal of that institution.

John G. Nicolay and John Hay’s multivolume
Abraham Lincoln: A History
(New York: The Century Company, 1890) traces events leading up to and during the war from the perspective of the two men closest to the president throughout that period.

Joshua Wolf Shenk’s thoughtful and empathetic
Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005) opens a new window into the soul of the sixteenth president, shedding light on almost every aspect of Lincoln’s life and decision making. William Lee Miller’s
President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008) traces its subject’s moral and political evolution.

In reconstructing the difficult chronology and interlocking events of the secession crisis, I was aided greatly by Russell McClintock’s recent
Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession,
cited above.

The only relatively modern biography of Elmer Ellsworth is Ruth Painter Randall’s lively
Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: A Biography of Lincoln’s Friend and First Hero of the Civil War
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1960), which is carefully researched and well written but unfortunately not footnoted. Charles Ingraham,
Elmer E. Ellsworth and the Zouaves of ’61
(University of Chicago Press, 1925) and Luther E. Robinson, “Elmer Ellsworth, First Martyr of the Civil War,” in
Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1923,
both contain useful information and lengthy passages from period sources.

On the cultural history of youth in nineteenth-century America, see Glenn Wallach,
Obedient Sons: The Discourse of Youth and Generations in American Culture, 1630–1860
(University of Massachusetts Press, 1997); Anthony Rotundo,
American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to Modern Era
(New York: Basic Books, 1993); Howard P. Chudacoff,
The Age of the Bachelor: Creating an American Subculture
(Princeton University Press, 1999); Thomas Augst,
The Clerk’s Tale: Young Men and Moral Life in Nineteenth-Century America
(University of Chicago Press, 2003); and Michael S. Kimmel,
Manhood in America: A Cultural History
(New York: Free Press, 2006).

Marcus Cunliffe’s
Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775–1865,
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1968) is a subtle, learned, and colorful exploration of Americans’ ambivalent attitudes toward war and the military. See also James B. Whisker,
The Rise and Decline of the American Militia System
(Susquehanna University Press, 1999).

Michael Burlingame, in
Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864
(Southern Illinois University Press, 1998), collects a number of articles that provide glimpses of Washington during the first weeks of the war, from someone close to both Lincoln and Ellsworth. Burlingame also edited
At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Correspondence and Selected Writings
(Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) and, with John R. Turner Ettlinger,
Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay
(Southern Illinois University Press, 1999)—both offer further accounts by Lincoln’s voluble private secretary—as well as
With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860–1865
(Southern Illinois University Press, 2000).

For the building of the transcontinental telegraph, see James Gamble, “Wiring a Continent,”
The Californian,
vol. 3, no. 6 (June 1881); also Carlyle N. Klise, “The First Transcontinental Telegraph,” (master’s thesis, Iowa State University, 1937); the growth of Western Union is covered in Robert Luther Thompson’s
Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States
(Princeton University Press, 1947). The most reliable account of the Pony Express is Christopher
Corbett’s myth-busting
Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express
(New York: Broadway Books, 2003). See also John D. Unruh, Jr.,
The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–60
(University of Illinois Press, 1979).

Pamela Herr provides the best account of Jessie Frémont’s life in
Jessie Benton Frémont: A Biography
(New York: Franklin Watts, 1987). Herr also edited, with Mary Lee Spence,
The Letters of Jessie Benton Frémont
(University of Illinois Press, 1993), a lively collection of correspondence. For John C. Frémont’s life and career, see Tom Chaffin’s fine biography,
Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2002), along with Allan Nevins’s classic
Frémont: Pathmarker of the West
(University of Nebraska Press, 1992; originally published 1928). Sally Denton’s
Passion and Principle: John and Jessie Frémont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics, and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century America
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2007) is an engaging joint biography.

For California and the Civil War, see Leonard L. Richards,
The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), as well as Kevin Starr’s compelling
Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915
(Oxford University Press, 1973). Thomas Starr King’s life and career have been covered most recently in Robert A. Monzingo’s
Thomas Starr King: Eminent Californian, Civil War Statesman, Unitarian Minister
(Pacific Grove, California: Boxwood Press, 1991) and in Richard Peterson’s “Thomas Starr King in California, 1860–64: Forgotten Naturalist of the Civil War Years,”
California History,
vol. 69, no. 1 (Spring 1990). Among several earlier biographies, Charles W. Wendte’s
Thomas Starr King: Patriot and Preacher
(Boston: The Beacon Press, 1921) is the most valuable. Some of King’s sermons were published posthumously in volumes of his collected work; hundreds more are preserved as manuscript drafts at the Boston Public Library. His personal correspondence is in the Bancroft Library, University of California.

Adam Arenson’s recent book
The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War
(Harvard University Press, 2010) convincingly treats the city as a fulcrum of the national crisis. The most thorough blow-by-blow account of the war there is Louis S. Gerteis’s
Civil War St. Louis
(University of Kansas Press, 2001). The only modern biography of Nathaniel Lyon is Christopher Phillips’s
Damned Yankee: The Life of General Nathaniel Lyon
(Louisiana State University, 1996), a book that, as its title suggests, betrays so little sympathy for its subject that one wonders how the author managed to get through writing it. Steven Rowan has done important work bringing to light the early history of the city’s German community, including
Germans for a Free Missouri: Translations from the St. Louis Radical Press, 1857–1862
(University of Missouri Press, 1983), coedited with James Neal Primm; and his edited translation of Henry Boernstein’s autobiography, published as
Memoirs of a Nobody: The Missouri Years of an Austrian Radical,
1849–1866 (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1997). For the Forty-Eighters, see A. E. Zucker, ed.,
The Forty-Eighters: Political Refugees of the German Revolution of 1848
(New York: Russell and Russell, 1967) and Carl
Wittke,
Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952). William E. Smith’s
The Francis Preston Blair Family in Politics
(New York: Macmillan, 1933) traces the various schemes of Frank Blair and his ambitious kinsfolk.

See
chapter 5
, above, for sources on Ellsworth and the Fire Zouaves, and
chapter 2
for sources on Washington, D.C. The scene of the troops in the Capitol and the general sights of Washington in the first weeks of the war are captured beautifully in Theodore Winthrop’s essay “Washington as a Camp,” published anonymously after his death in
The Atlantic Monthly
(July 1861). Drew Gilpin Faust’s
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008) puts Ellsworth’s death into a larger, tragic, context.