The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861
- ISBN-10
- 0199839913
- ISBN-13
- 9780199839919
- Series
- The Road to Disunion
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 624
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2008-10-01
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- William W. Freehling
Description
Here is history in the grand manner, a powerful narrative peopled with dozens of memorable portraits, telling this important story with skill and relish. Freehling highlights all the key moments on the road to war, including the violence in Bleeding Kansas, Preston Brooks's beating of Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and much more. As Freehling shows, the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked a political crisis, but at first most Southerners took a cautious approach, willing to wait and see what Lincoln would do--especially, whether he would take any antagonistic measures against the South. But at this moment, the extreme fringe in the South took charge, first in South Carolina and Mississippi, but then throughout the lower South, sounding the drum roll for secession. Indeed, The Road to Disunion is the first book to fully document how this decided minority of Southern hotspurs took hold of the secessionist issue and, aided by a series of fortuitous events, drove the South out of the Union. Freehling provides compelling profiles of the leaders of this movement--many of them members of the South Carolina elite. Throughout the narrative, he evokes a world of fascinating characters and places as he captures the drama of one of America's most important--and least understood--stories. The long-awaited sequel to the award-winning Secessionists at Bay, which was hailed as "the most important history of the Old South ever published," this volume concludes a major contribution to our understanding of the Civil War. A compelling, vivid portrait of the final years of the antebellum South, The Road to Disunion will stand as an important history of its subject. "This sure-to-be-lasting work--studded with pen portraits and consistently astute in its appraisal of the subtle cultural and geographic variations in the region--adds crucial layers to scholarship on the origins of America's bloodiest conflict." --The Atlantic Monthly "Splendid, painstaking account...and so a work of history reaches into the past to illuminate the present. It is light we need, and we owe Freehling a debt for shedding it." --Washington Post "A masterful, dramatic, breathtakingly detailed narrative." --The Baltimore Sun
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2008-10-01
- 605 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press
-
- 2008-10-01
- 624 pages
- Ebook
- Oxford University Press
-
- 1991-12-05
- 656 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press
-
- 1991-12-05
- 656 pages
- Ebook
- Oxford University Press
Similar books
-
The Road to Disunion: Secessionists triumphant, 1854-1861
By William W. FreehlingVol. 1 is a sweeping political and social history of the antebellum South from 1776 to 1854.
-
Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836
By William W. FreehlingFresh analysis revises many previous theories on origins & significance of the nullification controversy.
-
Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War
By Charles B. DewIn a powerful new afterword to this anniversary edition, Dew situates the book in relation to these recent controversies and factors in the role of vast financial interests tied to the internal slave trade in pushing Virginia and other ...
-
Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859
By Elizabeth R. VaronHarrison commanded 234 electoral votes to Van Buren's 60 and won 19 of the 26 states. In his lengthy inaugural address, Harrison articulated his mandate to preserve the ''cordial, confiding, fraternal union.
-
The South Vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War
By William W. FreehlingConcise and provocative, The South Vs. the South will forever change the way we view the Civil War.
-
The South's Forgotten Fire-Eater: David Hubbard and North Alabama's Long Road to Disunion
By Chris McIlwain... Dahlen, From Conciliation to Conquest: The Sack of Athens and the Court-Martial of Colonel John B. Turchin (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006). 100 (Greensboro) Alabama Beacon, April 3, 1863, 2; Huntsville Advocate, ...
-
Becoming Lincoln
By William W. FreehlingThe book concludes with a substantial epilogue in which Freehling turns to Lincoln’s wartime presidency to assess how the preceding fifty-one years of experience shaped the Great Emancipator’s final four years.
-
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
By Joanne B. Freeman"One of the best history books I've read in the last few years." —Chris Hayes The previously untold story of the violence in Congress that helped spark the Civil War In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of ...
-
New York Times: Disunion: Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War from Lincoln's Election to the Emancipation Proclamation
By The New York TimesPortraits, contemporary etchings, and detailed maps round out the book. This edition includes 15 additional articles, more than 70 new photos, and downloadable audio recordings.
-
The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War
By William W. FreehlingThis provocative collection of essays, all of them new of thoroughly revised, synthesizes thirty years of Freehling's writing and reflection on the nature of slavery and the causes of the Civil War.