Bruce Katz's Reviews > The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Larson begins his new book by saying, “I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place.” This is, to my recollection, the only time he refers explicitly to that day in the book, but J6 — indeed, the entirety of the Trump years (in which we are still living) — is a presence on every page, not least when Larson describes the urgent concerns officials had that the electoral count to certify Lincoln's election would be disrupted, the certifications stolen or destroyed, and the capitol attacked by angry Americans.

As Larson demonstrated in his other books (bestsellers all), he has an eye for the telling detail and interesting character. “Demon of Unrest” takes these skills to a new level. It brings to vivid life the period between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the firing on Fort Sumter. Most readers will probably go in thinking they know the basics of the event: Lincoln got elected, South Carolina seceded from the Union, it fired on Fort Sumter, and the Civil War began. Larson shows how much more there is to the story. The broader picture is there, to be sure: the debates, threats over secession, how people and politicians reacted to it, key events, and so on. What truly distinguishes “Demon” is its focus on the day-to-day details: the letters, arguments, diary entries, conversations, etc., that participants and observers shared, the doubts they entertained or the outrage they nurtured, the ego, ambition, delusion, and frustration. In short, how real people reacted at every step of the way -- those who sought to prevent war, those who eagerly worked to provoke it, and those caught in the middle.

Each section of the book is introduced with an excerpt from the Code Duello, the rules governing how duels are to be conducted. It’s a fitting device, given how critical dueling and honor were in shaping Southern attitudes. Larson shows us time and again how badly the North and South understood each other, how vastly different their cultures were and the effect those differences played in how events unfolded. The importance of Honor was a particularly powerful force in shaping Southern thought. For them, Northern attitudes about slavery (which was central to both the South's economy and its culture) were not policy differences but attacks on their Honor.

Larson writes very early on, “At the heart of the story is a mystery that still confounds: How on earth did South Carolina, a primitive, scantily populated state in economic decline, become the fulcrum for America’s greatest tragedy?” Then he proceeds to provide an answer to the question. South Carolina had 110,000 more enslaved people than it did whites. Fear of a slave uprising was perpetually in the minds of its white citizens and had been for many decades. The raid on Harper’s Ferry by John Brown in 1859 brought made that fear burn white hot. Southerners were constantly on edge. Northern criticisms of slavery were seen to not only as attacks on their honor and values but also as feeding an existential threat. The result of all this: As one South Carolinian — James Petigru, a Unionist who ultimately voted for secession -- is said to have put it, “South Carolina is too small for a Republic, and too big for an insane asylum.”

Larson puts flesh on the bare bones of our historical imaging of that fraught time. There's Charleston, South Carolina, for example, site of Fort Sumter. In the minds of readers today, it’s likely no more than an historical place name. Or we envision as it is today, with palmettos and magnolias and magnificent oaks. The picture of antebellum Charleston Larson shows us is quite different: “As you walk the streets of Charleston,” he writes, “rows of greedy vultures, with sapient look, sit on the parapets of the houses, watching for offal.” The vultures were so valuable in cleaning filthy streets that they were protected by law: anyone caught killing one was subject to a ten-dollar fine. And then there were the slave markets — visible to the public at one time, hidden out of sight at another, then out in the open again. There are wealthy plantation owners and their slaves, hotheads, unionists, and free Blacks anxiously hurrying home as curfew neared.

Larson shares many telling glimpses into Southern culture of the time. The highest echelons of South Carolina saw themselves as aristocracy, chevaliers, paragons of elegance. As the drama surrounding Ft Sumter is playing out, a ball is held in Charleston. One attendee glowingly described the ball goers as “very select” and “none but the higher classes.” At least one other person who was there that night saw things differently: British author, Margaret Hunter Hall, found the event less than stellar. The gentlemen were “very second-rate,” she wrote in her book, The Aristocratic Journey. As for the women: “I never in my life saw so many ugly women gathered together.”

To explore how the secession crisis was experienced, Larson goes back and forth from Charleston and Ft. Sumter to Washington, following various individuals as they make their way through the growing tension and uncertainty. Up in Washington City (the U.S. capital’s formal name until it became the District of Columbia in 1871), a well-out-of-his-depth President Buchanan is procrastinating. “His great hope,” we read, “seemed to be by temporizing to avoid an issue before the 4th March.” He meets regularly with members of his Cabinet to talk about what to do — particularly as the threat to Fort Sumter grows larger — oblivious to the fact that while these discussion as being held, one member of his Cabinet is secretly trying to ship arms to the South and another is feeding Southern leaders information about what’s being suggested and planned.

Buchanan, in turns out, is not only feckless in dealing with the crisis, he’s also oblivious to its seriousness. Larson writes of a conversation Buchanan has with Georgia Senator Robert Toombs about Fort Sumter before any shots have been fired: ““But Mr. Toombs, why do you ask?” “Because Sir my State has a deep interest in the decision.” This perplexed Buchanan. “How your state—what is it to Georgia whether a fort in Charleston harbor is abandoned?” “Sir,” Toombs answered, “the cause of Charleston is the cause of the South.” “Good God Mr. Toombs, do you mean that I am in the midst of a revolution?” “Yes Sir—more than that—you have been there for a year and have not yet found it out.” “

Unsurprisingly, Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander, is a prominent figure in the book. He is a Southerner himself but is ever mindful of his honor as an officer in the US Army. In a letter to a friend he writes, “Like yourself my sympathies are in the matter of the sectional controversy all with the South, but I must confess that I have lost all sympathy with the people who govern this state. They are resolved to cement their secession with blood.”

Awful though his split allegiances might be, they are made infinitely worse by the complete absence of instructions from his superiors in the chain of command. Should he be preparing for battle? Will there be reinforcements? Or should he surrender the fort? He receives contradictory answers from Washington — when he gets any answers at all, which is the usual case. As Larson writes of Anderson’s frustration, “He found it inconceivable that at so sensitive a moment, with war in the wind, the government would leave such a fateful decision to him.” In time, newly elected President Lincoln will order reinforcements be sent to Summit and Fort Pickens in Florida, but he inadvertently assigns the same ship to both locations at the same time.

The book is populated by a fascinating cast of individuals: among them are Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln (Lincoln was cautiously silent before he was sworn in and quickly overwhelmed after), the ever-ambitious William Seward, Jefferson Davis, Abner Doubleday (also stationed at Sumter), bloodthirsty secessionist Edmund Ruffin, Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, British journalist William Howard Russell, and many others. (Russell will be barred from visiting Army camps on both sides because of his reports on battles. It is from Russell too that we learn of the ubiquity of “chewing tobacco and its residues” in the country at that time. Spittoons were everywhere — really: everywhere! — but the floors were still covered with, well, exactly what you’d expect.)

Larson’s writing is, as ever, engaging and compulsively readable. We know, of course, what will happen at Sumter, but "Demon" enables us to watch events unfold on the ground, in Ft Sumter, in Charleston SC and Montgomery AL, Washington, Springfield IL, and elsewhere. Larson manages to make the story suspenseful. There are many things in the book I hadn’t known. None perhaps is as startling as the story of a (very) last ditch effort to avoid a civil war: a constitutional amendment proposed in the House by Rep. Thomas Corwin of Ohio and in the Senate by William Seward that guaranteed that Congress would not interfere with slavery where it currently existed… The House approved it by a vote of 133 to 65; the Senate likewise, 24 to 12. Lincoln later forwarded the proposed amendment, the original thirteenth, to all state governors… Only a few states would ultimately ratify the amendment before events made it irrelevant [by the attack on Ft. Sumter]. Known to future centuries as the Shadow or Ghost Amendment, it remained an active congressionally approved but unratified amendment into the twenty-first century, theoretically still open to a final vote by the states.

“Demon of Unrest” is full of such revelations, insights, and lively characters. I can say with complete confience that it will be a bestseller. And it will deserve to be.

My thanks to Crown Publishers and Edelweis+ for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.