Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America

"Engaging . . . With a novelist's eye for biographical detail, Epps has written an . . . enthralling book."—David W. Blight, Chicago Tribune

The last battle of the Civil War wasn't fought at Appomattox by dashing generals or young soldiers but by middle-aged men in frock coats. Yet it was war all the same—a desperate struggle for the soul and future of the new American Republic that was rising from the ashes of Civil War. It was the battle that planted the seeds of democracy, under the bland...