Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln

by Edward Achorn

Overview

A brilliantly conceived and vividly drawn story—Washington, D.C. on the eve of Abraham Lincoln’s historic second inaugural address as the lens through which to understand all the complexities of the Civil War

By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans and left intractable wounds on the nation. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington’s Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war’s unimaginable horrors—every drop of blood spilled—might well have been God’s just verdict on the national sin of slavery.

Edward Achorn reveals the nation’s capital on that momentous day—with its mud, sewage, and saloons, its prostitutes, spies, reporters, social-climbing spouses and power-hungry politicians—as a microcosm of all the opposing forces that had driven the country apart. A host of characters, unknown and famous, had converged on Washington—from grievously wounded Union colonel Selden Connor in a Washington hospital and the embarrassingly drunk new vice president, Andrew Johnson, to poet-journalist Walt Whitman; from soldiers’ advocate Clara Barton and African American leader and Lincoln critic-turned-admirer Frederick Douglass (who called the speech “a sacred effort”) to conflicted actor John Wilkes Booth—all swirling around the complex figure of Lincoln.

In indelible scenes, Achorn vividly captures the frenzy in the nation’s capital at this crucial moment in America’s history and the tension-filled hope and despair afflicting the country as a whole, soon to be heightened by Lincoln's assassination. His story offers new understanding of our great national crisis and echoes down the decades to resonate in our own time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802148742
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	55,512
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.60(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Edward Achorn, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Commentary and winner of the Yankee Quill Award, is the author of two acclaimed books about nineteenth-century baseball and American culture, Fifty-nine in ’84 and The Summer of Beer and Whiskey. He lives in an 1840s farmhouse in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Image Credits xi

Prologue: The Nation's Wounds xv

Chapter 1 Bloody Gashes on the Face of Heaven 1

Chapter 2 One and a Half Times Bigger 21

Chapter 3 A Message from Grant 39

Chapter 4 The Real Precious and Royal Ones 58

Chapter 5 Meditation on the Divine Will 79

Chapter 6 Public Sentiment Is Everything 98

Chapter 7 Indefinable Fascination 112

Chapter 8 The Blighting Pestilence 130

Chapter 9 There Was Murder in the Air 150

Chapter 10 A Future with Hope in It 166

Chapter 11 Andy Ain't a Drunkard 187

Chapter 12 An Excellent Chance to Kill the President 203

Chapter 13 With Malice toward None 220

Chapter 14 A Truth That Needed to Be Told 238

Chapter 15 A Sacred Effort 256

Epilogue: The Stuff to Carry Them Through 273

Appendix: Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address 297

Acknowledgments 301

Bibliography 305

Notes 323

Index 361

Editorial Reviews

01/27/2020

Journalist Achorn (The Summer of Beer and Whiskey) meticulously chronicles President Lincoln’s March 1865 inauguration in this kaleidoscopic history. Drawing from diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspaper reports, Achorn frames a poignant yet familiar portrait of Lincoln with the accounts of several historical figures who converged in Washington, D.C., for the inaugural address. Among them are Leaves of Grass author Walt Whitman, covering the event for the New York Times; Union Army brigadier general Selden Connor, rehabilitating his battlefield injuries in an area hospital; abolitionist Frederick Douglass, harboring deep suspicions about the president’s commitment to “the plight of African Americans”; and Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who administered the oath of office after having schemed to wrest the 1864 Republican presidential nomination from Lincoln. Achorn also tracks John Wilkes Booth’s movements over the course of the weekend, citing reports that the actor attempted to “strike down” in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. The book climaxes with a close reading of the speech itself, highlighting its biblical allusions and “astonishing” denunciation of slavery “as an unmitigated evil.” Though Achorn covers well-trod ground, he skillfully plumbs his sources for colorful details and draws memorable character sketches. History buffs will savor this evocative narrative. Agent: Lisa Adams, the Garamond Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Every Drop of Blood :

“It is hard to imagine anyone saying anything new about Abraham Lincoln, the most written-about figure in American history. But Edward Achorn has done it. No one has ever placed Lincoln’s Second Inaugural in such a full and rich context as he has. Achorn recreates the sights, sounds, smells, and the feel of everything, and his Lincoln was never more real. This is the work of a superb imaginative historian.” —Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire of Liberty

“This richly detailed account of the events surrounding Lincoln’s second inaugural address focuses on the many notable and obscure personalities present in Washington as the Civil War neared its end, including such opposites as Frederick Douglass and John Wilkes Booth, whose lives intersected with Lincoln’s in dramatically contrasting ways.” —James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom

“Prize-worthy. Achorn is erudite and empathetic, and the book is chock-full of information and telling insights. Achorn sets the scene for the greatest inaugural address in American history.” —Frank J. Williams, founder of The Lincoln Forum and author of Judging Lincoln

“A magisterial analysis not only of Lincoln’s second inaugural but of the context in which it was given. Achorn’s keen eye for the meaningful detail reveals new layers of meaning to both a familiar speech and the divided nation that received them. His gift for telling a good story makes it a must read for historians and general readers alike.” —Maury Klein, author of Days of Defiance and A Call to Arms

From the Publisher

01/01/2020

Achorn (The Summer of Beer and Whiskey) enters the crowded field of Abraham Lincoln studies by focusing on the people in and around Washington, DC, during the immediate days of the president's second inauguration in March 1865. The author provides rich description of a wide cast of people, including politicians, poets, soldiers, and nurses—both those had an interest in Lincoln and the prospects for his second term, as well as others who opposed Lincoln's election in 1864 or sought to undo it in 1865. Achorn is especially insightful in setting the scene for the inaugural, going deep inside the social world of the capital and remarking on the constant positioning for favor or notice. His revealing exegesis of Lincoln's Second Inaugural (shortly before his assassination), as a prayer and sermon more than an address, shows how Lincoln's understanding of scripture informed his reading of the meaning of the Civil War and the nation's obligations from it. VERDICT Although Achorn doesn't offer new interpretations of Lincoln or his speech, he does, however, provide the fullest accounting of the inauguration experience. A solid history that will allow readers to feel as if they are in the moment.—Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

Library Journal

2019-12-08
Abraham Lincoln, a now-revered president, wasn't always so beloved.

In a capable history of the events of 1865, Providence Journal vice president Achorn (The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America's Game, 2013, etc.) opens with the sanguinary situation that faced the president when hundreds of thousands of Americans lay dead as a result of a Civil War that threatened to grind on. Lincoln, writes the author, had "used every weapon he could get his hands on" to secure Union victory, from incurring massive federal debts to imposing the first income tax, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and inaugurating a military draft. Such moves gave ammunition to those who would brand him a tyrant, in the North as well as the South. Lincoln's enemies were legion, among them John Wilkes Booth, who by the time of Lincoln's second inauguration had developed a fixation around the president and indeed set out to kill him as he was being sworn in, having told friends, "I would rather have my right arm cut off at the shoulder than see Lincoln president again." There are plenty of scenes in which combatants are losing limbs for real, a bloodletting that Robert E. Lee finally tried to stanch by negotiating a truce with Ulysses S. Grant in the winter of 1865, one that Lincoln refused to entertain unless the parley resulted in unconditional surrender. "The generals had plainly tried to go around the president to strike the peace deal that had eluded Lincoln," Achorn writes, and Lincoln would have none of it. He lived only a few days after Lee finally surrendered at Appomattox, assassinated in a Washington theater and carried off to die in an apartment nearby because some of the people on hand to attend him "were concerned that a president should not die in a theater, a place that many religious Americans still considered unrespectable."

A vigorous, fresh look at a critical time in American history.

Kirkus Reviews

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