Summary of The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

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Summary of The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

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Erik Larson's book, The Splendid and the Vile, chronicles the pivotal period between Lincoln's election and the Civil War, highlighting tensions between the North and South, with slavery fueling the conflict. It uses diaries, secret communiques, and plantation records.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: May 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9783755476412

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PART ONE

THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS

Cataclysm

On Election Day, November 6, 1860, in Springfield, Illinois, nearly everyone was already up and voting in a four-way race with Abraham Lincoln as the frontrunner. If none of the candidates obtained a clear majority of votes, the election would be decided in the House of Representatives. The day was marked by an out-door tumult as people surging toward the city's only polling place, on the second floor of the Sangamon County Court House. Lincoln's hometown, Springfield, was located in the Illinois state capitol.

A cataclysmic change occurred as if Lincoln won and the Republican Party took control in Washington, it would sweep out the administration of James Buchanan and the proslavery Democratic Party. The Democrats had held almost unshakeable control of both houses of Congress since 1833, but Lincoln seemed to have a chance. Conflict within the Democratic Party had caused a rift that led Northern and Southern factions to propose presidential candidates of their own. Lincoln's backers saw a clear path to the White House.

At about three-thirty, Lincoln walked across the square to cast his own vote, as adoring locals called out his various nicknames. A crowd followed him, and Lincoln made it easy by wearing a black silk stovepipe all the same. At the window, the candidate announced his name, Abraham Lincoln, as if the clerk and everyone else in town did not already know him. He dropped his ballot in an adjacent glass bowl, demonstrating humility by snipped his own name from the paper ballot.

The early returns of the early elections in the South were brought to the campaign office via telegraph, transforming communication and causing tension. Lincoln, known for his secretive nature, was anxious and nervous. By nine o'clock, the tension was too great for him, and he walked to the telegraph office with secretary Nicolay and two friends. The messages arrived in code, and Lincoln received cryptic messages from the chair of New York's Republican Party. The crucial telegram from New York announced Lincoln's victory, with New York City winning by 250% of the vote. Lincoln also won Springfield by 222%. The election was seen as a crucible event, as it would determine whether the Southern States would remain free or be politically enslaved. Fire-eater Edmund Ruffin hoped that Lincoln would win, as he believed that if the South did not resist, future maintenance of their rights would be impossible and the end of negro slavery may be considered as settled. The election was a momentous crisis of institutions and the fate of the South.

In Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln won the election with nearly 1,866,000 votes, becoming the first president to win more than any candidate. However, the race was split four ways, and Lincoln took the Electoral College by a wide margin. The returns offered little hope for bridging the nation's division, as he received few votes in Southern states where he was included on the ballot. Lincoln's victory was met with uncertainty as the final certification of Electoral College votes would not take place for another three months.

The South did not like the outcome, as it had a direct cost on the financial well-being of its leading citizens, its planters. Cotton prices fell, and the market value of slaves limited their ability to use them as security for mortgages and investments. South Carolina reacted with fury, with federal judge Andrew Gordon Magrath resigning and vowing to obey only the wishes of his own state.

Lincoln was unsure of South Carolina's reaction, as he had won an election and America's greatest democratic tradition had been upheld. He revealed his own myopia, as he had little understanding of the South, particularly the existential fear that its planter aristocracy harbored about his becoming president.

A Proper Commander

Colonel John L. Gardner, commander of U.S. Army forces in Charleston, South Carolina, was increasingly worried about the vulnerability of Fort Moultrie, a squat fortress on Sullivan's Island. The presidential election had intensified the secessionist mood of Charleston, causing Gardner to become concerned that Fort Moultrie could be seized even by a mob of armed citizens. The fort was designed from the start to defend against ships of hostile foreign nations, with little attention paid to the potential for an attack from behind by fellow Americans.

Gardner had few soldiers and few small arms, and he had recommended that his garrison at Sumter be issued muskets from the city's federal arsenal. He also began to worry about a threat closer at hand, this from the civilian workers at the forts, many of whom were free men, many of whom were immigrants from Europe. Gardner feared that the workers, if armed, might unrestrainedly deliver up the post and its contents on a bribe or demand. Instead of guns, he urged two companies to occupy both Sumter and Castle Pinckney.

Senior Army officials recognized that the colonel had to be removed and proposed to replace him with Major Anderson. Anderson, a Kentuckian by birth and a former owner of enslaved laborers, was sympathetic to the South but staunchly loyal to the U.S. Army. Before taking command in Charleston, Anderson had been promoted and assigned to help establish an Artillery School of Practice at Fort Monroe in Norfolk, Virginia, another important federal fortress.

In October 1860, Anderson asked to be relieved from his posting at the Fort Monroe Artillery School, and three days later, the Army issued Special Order No. 137: Major Robert Anderson, First Artillery, will forthwith proceed to Fort Moultrie, and immediately relieve Bvt. [Brevet] Col. John L. Gardner, lieutenant colonel of First Artillery, in command thereof.

Charleston, a historic city in the United States, was a bustling port city that was surrounded by a peninsula at the convergence of two rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper. Visitors arrived by train or steamship, crossing the notorious Charleston Bar, a submerged triangular mass of shifting sand that required experienced harbor pilots. The city's southernmost wards were lined with two- and three-story homes embedded in rich, fragrant gardens, and many were encircled by airy verandas, or piazzas. The city's eastern waterfront was filled with masts and steamships, while swamps and mechanical industries occupied the west front. The Battery and its beloved esplanade formed the city's southernmost end, fronted by the mansions of the chivalry.

However, the streets were unpaved, and on hot, dry days, breezes raised clouds of dust. An unexpectedly primordial source aided in the city's sanitation, as observed by British visitor John Benwell. Charles Rosenberg, a countryman, decided to settle in Charleston, but with a caveat as to timing. The city had an heirloom quality, with an undercurrent of brutality for many visitors. Enslaved Blacks transported from the upper South in the domestic trade arrived by ship and train, and the city had thirty-two slave brokerages that held frequent auctions.

Ryan's Mart in Charleston became the center of slave trading, selling enslaved Blacks of all ages. The sale of a Prime Gang of 235 Negroes from the estate of Gen. James Gadsden on January 9, 1860, was a significant event in the South. The flyer for the sale identified the young people and their skills, which were crucial for their value as they grew up.

Anderson, born in the Deep South, understood the passions and resentments of the South and embraced the proslavery ethos that slavery was a positive good for both slaves and society. He believed that the Bible expressly permitted slavery. However, Anderson's senior officer, Capt. Abner Doubleday, believed that he had fallen out of step with the global shift that had driven the North and advanced societies of Europe to reclassify it as a repulsive moral wrong.

The Moultrie garrison maintained a comfortable relationship with the citizens of Charleston, and Anderson sought to establish a nonthreatening tone when he arrived at Moultrie. He echoed his predecessor's recommendation to reinforce Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, arguing that strength was the best deterrent. Anderson knew that agitation for secession was intensifying, and Carolina authorities had made no secret of their desire to seize control of all federal property in the harbor.

As the storm of secession approached, scores of young men, dressed as the Young Men's Secession Association, marched through the city, bearing torches and firing off rockets and Roman candles. The clouds were gathering, and the storm may break upon them at any moment.

The Awakening

The text describes the life of Thomas Jefferson Hammond, a prominent planter in the South during the 18th century. Hammond was a leading advocate of secession but his greatest influence came from his role as one of the foremost architects of a profound shift in the South's thought about slavery and its own self. Hammond was born in 1807 and raised by a failure-prone father, Elisha, who sought to instill in his son a thirst for greatness. He attended a second-rate rural preparatory school called Poplar Spring, where his father assured him that great things lay ahead.

At South Carolina College, Hammond attended the By-Laws, a handbook of rules that governed the behavior of gentlemen. The students developed a sensitivity to abrasions of honor and developed a penchant for violence. This became evident in the Guard House Riot in 1856, where over one hundred enraged young men confronted the city's militia.

At South Carolina College, Hammond may have engaged in sexual explorations involving men, or at least one man. Two letters survive that have led to endless speculation, both written in 1826 after the two men had graduated. One Hammond expert, Carol Bleser, took a boys-will-be-boys view, arguing that students often shared beds and that Hammond fell into the problematic cohort of teenaged boys.

The college instilled a reverence for Southern culture and the status of gentlemen, with the ultimate goal of training them in knowledge, virtue, religion, and refinement. The school's budget for 1845 included money for the purchase of a slave. Despite being fourth in his class, Hammond was disappointed to find himself working as a teacher at a provincial school, not graduating into the planter aristocracy. He decided to marry Catherine Fitzsimons, a fifteen-year-old heiress from one of South Carolina's richest families.

Hammond married Catherine, who became one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina. He quit his editorship at the Southern Times, closed his law office, and settled into his new life as a gentleman planter. His empire included 10,800 acres of land, centered on a plantation called Silver Bluff. The plantation had a sawmill, gristmill, cotton gin, and a small village of structures that housed the plantation's greatest asset: its enslaved laborers.

In total, Hammond owned 147 enslaved workers, of whom 73% were men and 74% were women. Enslaved Blacks were capital, and a slave family that regularly bore children was about as robust an asset as one could dream of. However, their penchant for dying inflicted financial costs in terms of lost labor and diminished capital. Hammond conflated human lives with other plantation assets, arguing that life seemed to be the mere sport of some capricious destiny.

Hammond, a planter, implemented a strategy of absolute dominance, allowing enslaved Blacks to visit town only twice a year and determining who would be allowed to marry or divorce. He also assigned names to babies and offered bonuses for newlyweds and