Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina

A dramatic account of the actions and attitudes behind the even that began the Civil War. Vast research in private papers, legislative records, and newspapers has produced this important new perspective on the origins of the Civil War. Crisis of Fear was awarded the Allan Nevins History Prize by the Society of American Historians. In the wake of the John Brown raid on Harpers Ferry, an atmosphere of hysteria and suspicion gripped South Carolina, an atmosphere in which large-scale slave insu...