1861, Adam Goodheart
In time for the 150th anniversary of our defining national event: an original and altogether gripping account of how the Civil War began.
1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, Americans began to rally around an idea of remaking the country into a morally coherent stronghold of liberty. This second American revolution inspired a new generation to reject their parents’ faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal.
The book introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes—among them, an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer’s wife, a close-knit band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, and a young college professor who would one day become president. Adam Goodheart takes us from the halls of the Capitol to the slums of Manhattan, from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the deserts of Nevada, from Boston Common to Alcatraz Island, vividly evoking the Union at this moment of ultimate crisis and decision.
Praise for 1861
“
1861 is the best book I have ever read on the start of the Civil War.” —Tony Horwitz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of
Confederates in the Attic
“A work of remarkable original scholarship crafted into an irresistible read.” —Harold Holzer, chairman of The Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and author of
Lincoln President-Elect
“Adam Goodheart brings to this book a rare combination of talent: passion and precision as a historian, grace and generosity as a writer.” —Richard Ben Cramer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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About Adam Goodheart
Adam Goodheart is a historian, journalist, and travel writer. He is writing a regular column on the Civil War for
The New York Times online. He has written for
National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, GQ, and
The New York Times Magazine, among others, and has worked as an editor of the Op-Ed page of
The New York Times. He is a book reviewer for
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the
New York Observer. He lives in Washington, D.C., and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he is director of Washington College’s C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.
Photo © Michael Lionstar