The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

In The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson looks at the months leading up to the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, starting with the gallantry of Southern life (for the ruling class only) and the election of Lincoln, which agitated slave owners who assumed he would challenge their way of life and their prosperity.  As revealed in this narrative, the months leading to the attack on Sumter seem like a train careening off the tracks but with many moments when it seems someone should have been able to stop it.

For as long as I can remember, I found the English Civil War more interesting than the American Civil War but Larson has the ability to bring any historical period to life and had me listening eagerly to this entire book.

Most of the action takes place in Charleston or DC, so it was very startling as I drove toward Boston’s Jamaica Pond one evening to have the narrative suddenly move to my part of Massachusetts:

In Boston, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., son of the congressman and diarist of the same name, got word of Virginia’s vote on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 5. “I was skating on Jamaica Pond, all by myself,” he wrote in his diary, “when I noticed the throng of skaters flocking together on the further side of the Pond, and almost immediately they began to shout and cheer with all their souls. Some one had come out bringing a paper with fuller and final returns. The tears almost stood in my eyes; and I skated off to be alone, for I realized the crisis was actually passed.”

Alas, the crisis passed only temporarily! But is this mention of Jamaica Pond an example of Book Serendipity or just a coincidence?

Larson is a bit too focused with the Southerners’ obsession with chivalry but I liked how he framed the book with excerpts from the rules for dueling, The Code Duello.  The Demon of Unrest is full of complicated individuals on both sides and made me want to read more – at least about some of them!

Bad Guys: 

William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State. I haven’t read Team of Rivals yet so I didn’t know what a sneaky fellow Seward was and that he was against sending reinforcements to Fort Sumter, willing to let the loyal soldiers starve. All I knew about him was that he bought Alaska for $7.2 million in 1867.

Edmund Ruffin. I got so tired of this rabid secessionist who was so disgusted by Virginia’s hesitation about leaving the Union that he spent those pre-Sumter months rabble-rousing throughout the southern states like an Old Testament prophet gone bad, trying to find fellow radicals.

James Henry Hammond. Horrible Southern planter/SC governor/US senator who married for money and treated his wife and slaves badly. Seduced his nieces! Forced a female slave and her daughter to become his mistresses, shared them with his son! I don’t want to hear any more about this abusive hypocrite but it is interesting that Drew Faust wrote a whole book about him.

Good Guys (or Gal): 

Major Robert Anderson.  The commander of Fort Sumter was inexcusably left in the dark without support or even definitive orders; ordered not to fire the first shot but basically left to starve. As a Kentuckian and former slave owner, he was sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union and his military duty.

Mary Boykin Chesnut. Larson has an unerring ability to extract gems from letters and journals, and I especially enjoyed the excerpts from the diaries of this famous Southerner and friend of Varina Davis (much younger wife of the president of the Confederacy and known to me from The Proud Way). Chesnut’s observations are astute and sometimes amusing but, most of all, provide a woman's voice from the Civil War.

William Howard Russell. The celebrated reporter from the London Times was sent to America to cover the conflict after reporting on the Crimean War. His observations were detailed and interesting but when he was too candid about the Union’s defeat at Battle of Bull Run, he infuriated the Northerners and was much criticized, even banned from military posts. Unable to provide close-up coverage of the war, he returned to England.

Fort Sumter

We did a family trip to Charleston once but I will have to ask my mother if we visited Fort Sumter. All I remember is that my sister Clare and I had our own room because the aunt and uncle supposed to meet us couldn’t make it. This meant there was no one to say No when I found the address of the Charleston Library in the phone book and left the motel without telling anyone to check out the children’s room. Dragging my innocent nine-year-old sister along. I did not return empty handed but that is another story . . . .

Erik Larson’s editor, Amanda Cook, was the commencement speaker at my nephew’s high school graduation several weeks ago. Her younger son played soccer with Xavier so I had met her briefly at a game last year. She was eloquent about the importance of reading for pleasure and the power of storytelling. I had already chosen The Demon of Unrest for my book group to read this month as I am hosting. I hope everyone liked it as much as I did, although we often have the best conversations if opinions differ.

Title: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Author: Erik Larson
Narrator: Will Patton
Publication: Random House Audio, 2024
Genre: History/Nonfiction
Source: Library

Other Larson Reviews:  Dead Wake, Isaac's Storm