President Lincoln | Seattle Book Mama

Bennett Parten is a fine historical writer, and here he examines General William Sherman’s renowned march through Georgia during the American Civil War through the lens of the formerly enslaved people that followed him. It’s a job that needed doing, and I’m glad that Parten was the one to do it. My thanks go to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The Union’s approach to formerly enslaved people evolved considerably over the course of the war. (This is your reviewer talking, not Parten.) In the beginning, when both North and South thought the conflict would be a brief one—ending, of course, in their own victories—anyone that left a plantation without permission to follow the Union army was promptly returned to their owner. But this was problematic from the start, if only logistically, as such practices slowed the army’s pace and drained resources from it, all in service to the enemy. For a while, then, everything was unofficial, as gradually, the formerly enslaved were sometimes folded into the army as support staff, helping cook, set up camps, pave roads, and whatever other noncombat roles needed to be filled. Eventually the practice was codified, not because slaves were declared free—not yet—but as “contrabands” of war. The idea was that by taking the enemy’s property that one runs across, be it livestock, crops, or (wince!) human beings, one’s own forces were strengthened, the enemy’s weakened. And after the Emancipation Proclamation, the formerly enslaved could theoretically go wherever they chose, but since guns and dogs can render such a proclamation from a far away and often unrecognized authority, it seemed like a wise plan for the formerly enslaved to follow the Union army.

Prior to reading this book, I was unaware of the relative size of the crowd of followers as opposed to the army itself. As Sherman’s forces made their way through Georgia waging total war, razing fields and burning cities, the crowd behind it grew from hundreds, to thousands, to tens of thousands!

Sherman’s first obligation, as he saw it, was to win this war. The army had to be his focus. Yet, as enthusiastic followers swarmed, they needed food, shelter, and sometimes other assistance. Initially, the troops were instructed not to give food to anyone other than those followers tapped to serve the army, but it proved difficult to enforce. There were children there, and they might well starve if not fed. The army had, as an intentional strategy, denuded the farms and villages of food and other necessary resources, so telling the followers to go find their own food was disingenuous. The army had nearly all the food there was; unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for thousands of extra mouths. And at times, Sherman and his generals made an effort to prevent, or to at least not help, the followers from remaining with them.

The greatest scandal was the one at Ebenezer Creek. (Sherman himself was not physically present for this, but what happened was consistent with his policies.) Georgia was full of rivers, swamps, creeks, and bogs, and in order to cross them, sometimes the engineers constructed bridges, and then either burned them behind themselves to prevent the enemy from following, or retrieved them for later use. In this instance, the enemy was close at the rear, and the order was given to pull up the bridges just as soon as the last soldier was across. The result was horrifying: with the hounds baying behind them, the desperate followers used every possible means to try to stay with the army. Some drowned; others were captured and either returned to slavery or killed. Women and children perished in those muddy waters, and later, the Federals launched an investigation.

There were other less dramatic, yet still tragic, incidents of the same sort.

In order to solve this conundrum, Sherman ordered a series of abandoned plantations in Port Royal, an island in South Carolina, to be turned over for the use of the freedmen and women. The book goes into a fair amount of detail about how these were run, with a fierce competition between two sides for control. Despite an overly colonial administration, formerly enslaved people were able to farm for themselves, and in some cases were able to buy land with the money they earned. It was a sound, if flawed program that was ultimately destroyed when Lincoln was murdered and Andrew Johnson, a sympathizer of the South, became president and gave the plantations back to their original owners, making no provision whatsoever for the farmers that now worked them.

It is this aspect of which I knew nearly nothing. Part of this is because I am a coward; I have a dozen or more books about Reconstruction that I say I will read, but then I don’t, and that is because I know the ending will be heartbreaking. But there’s also this: conventional histories of the Civil War tend to follow one or another army, general, and so forth, and very few tell the story of what happens after the army marches onward. And so I learned a good deal from this portion of the book; and yes, my heart broke, but not as much as those of the people that were first assisted, and then abandoned by the U.S. government.

Finally, I want to comment on the notes and sources used here. They are beyond reproach, with many primary sources used, multiple sources per endnote in most cases, and well-integrated. I particularly appreciated the quotations of the followers themselves.

I highly recommend this book to all that are interested in the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and the many social and racial problems that have continued to weigh on American society ever since.

When it comes to history, it’s hard to conjure a more capable author than Erik Larson. I’ve thought this for some time, but his Churchill biography, The Splendid and the Vile (2020) cemented this impression. I am therefore gushingly grateful to NetGalley and Crown Books for the review copy. I would have paid full cover price for this book if that was the only way that I could get it—or the only way that I could get it soon.

This book focuses on Fort Sumter, the Federal fort off the coast of South Carolina that became the catalyst for the opening guns of the American Civil War. The Southern states that seceded from the US, or that attempted to do so, believed themselves entitled to seize the forts, munitions, and indeed, every single ounce of American property located within the borders of their states—and although Fort Sumter and the lesser, partially constructed forts around it were on islands rather than inside the state’s boundaries, they expected to annex those, too.

Meanwhile, as most know, Major Robert Anderson was the fort’s commander, and he desperately wanted orders from Washington. The period following Lincoln’s election, up until he actually took office, was a critical one, but President Buchanan was determined to postpone any official acts until he could hand the responsibility to someone else. He didn’t want his legacy marred by the beginning of a civil war, or indeed, by any sort of noteworthy strife whatsoever, and so he mostly just hid from everyone. Representatives from South Carolina—would-be ambassadors that came to conduct international business—were turned away without official recognition, and that’s about the only worthwhile thing the guy did. And during this fraught period, Anderson and those he commanded waited tensely to learn whether they would be ordered to evacuate, or to defend the fort.

They waited a long damn time; too long.

This is a complex story and an interesting one, and so there are many historical characters discussed, but the primary three that take center stage are Major Anderson; Edmund Ruffin, a South Carolinian firebreather, stoking the fires of secession; and Mary Chesnut, the highly literate wife of a member of the ruling elite. Others of importance are, of course, President Lincoln; Allan Pinkerton, the head of the notorious Pinkerton Agency, which is tasked with keeping Lincoln alive; and a Southern power broker named Hammond, with whom the story begins.

In starting the narrative by discussing Hammond, Ruffin, and Chesnut, Larson gives us a fascinating window into the minds of the South Carolinian ruling elite, known among themselves as “the chivalry.” They style themselves as if they were characters from out of Arthurian legends, placing their own somewhat bizarre code of honor above every other possible principle, and beyond matters of simple practicality. I’ve always been fascinated by the way that leaders of morally bankrupt causes arrange their thoughts and rationales so that they can look at themselves in the mirror every morning and like what they see, and nobody can explain it quite the way Larson can. Everything is crystal clear and meticulously documented. I’m a stickler for documentation, and so although I feel a little silly doing so for someone of his stature, I pull two of his sources, Battle Cry of Freedom, by James McPherson, and Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, which is the diary she wrote leading up to and during the war, from my own shelves, and turn to the pages indicated in a couple of the notes. There they are, just where Larson said they’d be! This may not impress you, but it makes me ridiculously happy.

The story commences with Hammond, a wealthy planter with a highly elastic moral code. There’s a fair amount of trigger worthy material here—though the term had not been coined yet, he was a sexual predator of the highest order, and delighted in writing about the things he did to his nieces. Although this information, drawn from primary sources, does its job by letting us know exactly what kind of person helped shape the rebellion, it’s hard to stomach, and I advise readers that can’t stand it to either skim or skip these passages, because one can easily understand the majority of the text without them.

Once upon a time, this reviewer taught about the American Civil War to teens, and yet I learn a hefty amount of new information. In particular, I find the depiction of Anderson illuminating. I have never seen such a well rendered portrait of him before.

I could discuss this book all day, and very nearly have done so, but the reader will do far better to get the book itself. Highly recommended, this may well be the best nonfiction book of 2024.