Category Secession
America’s Great Debate
In this book, Fergus Bordewich looks at the Compromise of 1850. “In a larger sense,” he tells us, the book is “about the genesis of the Civil War.” He says, “It will be clear to anyone who unravels the debate of that year that the war was already under way in the psyches of many […]
Virginia Secedes
This book edited by Dr. Dwight Pitcaithley provides primary source material dealing with the decision of Virginia politicians to secede from the United States. In the Introduction he explains, “For the past fifteen decades, historians and popular writers have assigned many causes for the Civil War. Most of those written during the first century after […]
The Convention—and the Cause—that Organized the Confederacy
I found this article today. “A critical step precipitating the Civil War was taken 160 years ago this month. On February 4, 1861, delegates from six states of the deep South convened in Montgomery, Alabama to organize a provisional government for what they conceived to be a new, independent republic—the Confederate States of America. Beginning […]
CWTR Episode 2103: Decade of Disunion
This is a conversation between host Professor Gerald Prokopowicz and his guest, retired journalist Robert W. Merry, about Mr. Merry’s book, Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861. It seemed to me this book is an attempt to “blame both sides” for the Civil War, though that […]
Lincoln President-Elect
This book by Harold Holzer is an in-depth look at what Abraham Lincoln did and said, along with the events, between his election as president and his inauguration. This was, as the subtitle tells us in the words coined by Henry Adams, “The Great Secession Winter of 1860-1861, when the seven states of the Deep […]
The War for the Union: The Improvised War 1861-1862
This book by Allan Nevins is the fifth in his Ordeal of the Union series. It’s also the first of four volumes that look at the Civil War itself. He explains, “This volume and those which follow, treating the plain people as the real heroes and heroines of the war, have as a primary theme […]
The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War 1859-1861
This book by Allan Nevins is the fourth in the Ordeal of the Union series. The major events this volume covers are John Brown’s Harpers Ferry Raid, the split in the Democratic Party, the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the secession of the Cotton States. The big argument between the sections was the argument over […]
Student of the American Civil War 
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