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Overview
One month in 1865 witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond, a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrilla warfare, Lee's harrowing retreat, and then, Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation.
In the end, April 1865 emerged as not just the tale of the war's denouement, but the story of the making of our nation.
Jay Winik offers a brilliant new look at the Civil War's final days that will forever change the way we see the war's end and the nation's new beginning. Uniquely set within the larger sweep of history and filled with rich profiles of outsize figures, fresh iconoclastic scholarship, and a gripping narrative, this is a masterful account of the thirty most pivotal days in the life of the United States.
Synopsis
It was a month that could have unraveled the nation. Instead, it saved it. In April 1865, Jay Winik masterfully breathes new life into the end of a war and the events we only thought we knew. This gripping, panoramic narrative takes readers on a breathless ride through these tumultuous 30 days, showing that the nation's future rested on a few crucial decisions and twists of fate.
Here is Richmond's dramatic fall, Lee's harrowing retreat, and the intense debate in Confederate circles over unleashing guerilla warfare. Here, too, is the rebel surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln's assassination five days later, and the ensuing fears of chaos and a coup, the shaky transfer of presidential power, and, finally, the start of national reconciliation. Outsized characters stalk through sweeping events in Winik's brilliant narrative, transforming a seeming epilogue to a great war into a central—and saving—moment in American history, firmly placing April 1865 in the same pantheon as 1492 and 176.
About the Author:
Jay Winik has had a distinguished government career and is now a senior scholar at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. His first boo, On the Brink: The Dramatic, Behind-the-Scenes Saga of the Regan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War, won wide critical acclaim. He lives in Chevy Chase, MD.
Weekly Standard - Terry Eastland
Winik's command of the war makes the book compelling: an engrossing narrative history, a valuable refresher on how the war ended.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
In April 1865, the Civil War was drawing to a close. Richmond had fallen. Lee was in retreat. The Confederates were debating a last-ditch guerrilla warfare assault. The surrender at Appomattox would soon follow, and in five days President Lincoln would fall to an assassin's bullet. How would the war end? Would the country be able to pull itself together after the wrenching conflict? And how would the shaky presidential transition affect the mood of the nation? Historian Jay Winik takes the reader back to that tumultuous time in a book that master Civil War historian James McPherson says "fully measures up to the importance of its subject."Terry Eastland
Winik's command of the war makes the book compelling: an engrossing narrative history, a valuable refresher on how the war ended.— Weekly Standard