Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War

“Illuminating and well-written. . . . Deserves a place in the highest ranks of Civil War scholarship.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

In November 1860, telegraph lines carried the news that Abraham Lincoln had been elected president. Over the next five months the United States drifted, stumbled, and finally plunged into the most destructive war this country has ever faced. With a masterful eye for telling detail, Maury Klein provides fascinating new insights into the period from the election of...