Twelve Days: How the Union Nearly Lost Washington in the First Days of the Civil War

In the popular literature of the Civil War, the days immediately after the surrender at Fort Sumter are overshadowed by the battles and changes in American life.



Tony Silber's account starts on April 14, 1861, with President Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand militia troops. Washington, a Southern slaveholding city, was the focal point. The capital was barely defended, by about two thousand local militia troops of dubious training and loyalty. In Charleston, the Confederates had an org...