I’ve been eagerly awaiting Erik Larson’s new book, even more so this time around because his subject is the period between Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861. This past Tuesday I headed over to pick up a copy of
Thanks for your thoughtful essay (and replies to comments). I think I'll give this book a miss. While recognizing that you have read it and I haven't (important!), it sounds like too much is missing from Larson's account for me, particularly African American voices and experience. The resulting objectifying descriptions are also a turn-off (he sounds like he's talking about livestock, with his "Blacks" and "females"). I imagine, for example, that enslaved people were glad to escape not only the supervision of overseers at Christmas but also their routine violence. Whether either overseers or "masters" took a break from sexual violence over the holidays seems doubtful, especially for multiracial and -generational abuser and rapist Hammond. As to Southern honor, "Field of Blood" gives an outstanding description of how that worked in practice - does Larson acknowledge that reality or take the word at face value?
While one could argue that telling a political story requires only the voices of those empowered to speak in the political arena, it would be fair to readers to say so. Does Larson do that?
On that basis, however, one could argue for a history of the New York Married Women's Property Act that excludes detail about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (outside their testimony). I wouldn't be interested in that either.
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the rest of the book as much as you have the first part.
"While one could argue that telling a political story requires only the voices of those empowered to speak in the political arena, it would be fair to readers to say so. Does Larson do that? "
I find this discussion really interesting. In my view it reflects one of the historiographical debates that i think bubbles along just below the semi-amicable surface of most contemporary historical scholarship. Can you tell any aspect of the story of the American Civil War without writing about the enslave? There is a strong current in contemporary Civil War scholarship that I think would argue no. I am however not so sure that is the case, and it strikes me that given what I understand Larson's topic to be that is what he has done. I am not suggesting those individual stories are not important but sometimes we have to take a step back from studying the individual trees and focus on the entire forest. But, I have to add I think it is impossible to tell the story of the period between the election of 1860 and the firing on Fort Sumpter with out talking about the abolitionist movement and its leaders. In particular African-American leaders like Fredrick Douglas. If Larson has indeed given Douglas and the abolitionist movement the limited amount of attention described that is a serious failing.
References to slavery appear throughout the book. Larson does not ignore the importance of slavery as a catalyst of secession and in shaping the outlook of many of the characters that drive this particular story. I just read a section in which Larson mentions the work that enslaved workers performed in constructing artillery positions around Charleston Harbor in early 1861. The criticism is that he chose not to focus on a specific Black individual to tell this story. That certainly has consequences, but I don't think that he ignores slavery and I don't believe that it renders the book unreadable. Far from it. Thanks for the comment, Michael.
Maybe what I said did not come out as I intended; I am pretty sure you cannot write about our Civil War with out mentioning some aspect of slavery. But I am less sure about the necessity of focusing on specific Black individual or individuals to tell that story, depending on what the story you are trying to tell.
Are you and Dave Powell coordinating this effort to deplete my retirement accounts? <VBG>
I am going to attempt to defend Larson's choice of narrative, somewhat, which is kind of crazy because I don't even own the book (yet). The book appears to be intended to tell the story of what is commonly known as the "Secession Winter," and in that tale, the white enslaving oligarchy was driving the events in the South, thus they get the focus of the tale---it is, after all, men like Hammond and Ruffin who were driving events, so it is appropriate, even necessary, for Larson to focus on men like Hammond and Ruffin. This book appears to me to be the story of a contest between the white power structure in the North and the even whiter power structure in the South, and how they were unable (largely because the fire-eaters did not want it to happen) to reach an accommodation before war broke out. I *am* disappointed in the apparent minimal treatment of Douglass, because I am sure that the black population of the North had views on everything going on, and Douglass would have been an important voice for them. But the sad truth is that the enslaved population in the South had virtually no influence on events, THAT I AM AWARE OF. (If, in fact, they did have some influence, I'm totally unaware of it, and would love to be educated. Politely.) So I think the criticism of the author on this point is at least possibly a tad misplaced.
This is certainly not a social history, but a much more traditional narrative. I think it comes down, as you said, to wanting to tell a certain story and to focus on specific characters to help move the narrative along. The problems with the interpretation have everything to do with those choices. It's well worth reading if you are looking for an entertaining escape.
Re the provisionally advanced proposition that "the enslaved population in the South had virtually no influence on events" just before the war:
Here are a few possibly relevant thoughts from the late Ira Berlin's little 2015 book _The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States_. Berlin founded and led the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland. At the end I ask a question.
Thoughts from _The Long Emancipation_:
* Slavery's demise was not "the work of a moment, even if that moment was a great civil war." Instead it was a nearly century-long process, entwined with the larger transatlantic emancipation struggle.
* In the antebellum period, Black people "took the lead in demanding freedom."
* Black people held primacy in slavery's demise; no "one was more responsible for smashing the shackles of slavery than the slaves." This is way too little recognized, Berlin thought, because of an unsupportable supposition that "the hand of constituted authority" mattered enormously more than did the mere "hand of ordinary people."
* By the middle of the century, the nearly four million enslaved had made the U.S. "the largest slave society in the world." Between a thousand and five thousand Americans escaped enslavement yearly between 1830 and 1860. The leaks "threatened both the material and ideological foundation upon which the slave regime rested."
My question:
To what extent, if any, is that framing factually grounded, and if it's so grounded, to what extent, if any, does it support the two book reviewers' and KML's misgivings about the book's reported lack of attention to the prewar Black factor?
I can't offer an informed opinion on Berlin's thesis being well-grounded, as I have not read his book, but I'm willing to accept it, based on his reputation. If the primary agency of the enslaved in their own emancipation (during the antebellum period) was their ability and willingness to attempt escape, then I think it makes my point. In the context of the political dynamics of the Secession Winter, any increase in escape attempts would seem to me to have an, at most, marginal effect. I do seem to recall there was no small amount of Southern concern and even near-panic over the issue, based on a number of rumored plots of local slave uprisings. It might have been a good idea for Larson to have mined this vein, as it would no doubt link up with Southern anxiety/outrage over John Brown's raid, as well as highlight Southern hypocrisy over the "faithful slave who was willing to slit Southern throats in the night." If, as Kevin suggests, Larson's purpose was not to write a scholarly tome but a traditional narrative of the events of the Secession Winter, then I think he gets to write the book he wants to write. (And reviewers and scholars get to bemoan his narrative choices and missed opportunities.)
I should point out that Larson references the fear of slave uprisings, leading up to and after Lincoln's election, among enslavers. Again, it's important to note that Larson does not ignore slavery as the primary driver of secession.
Thanks for this affirmation that Black Americans were as important as anyone in nearly everything about the Civil War--despite the unconscious, unintended, but nevertheless pernicious systemic racism that relegates them to supposed feckless, passive bystanderhood.
I'm no historian, but I can read, and it's pretty clear to me that in fact the reason the movement that some historians call self-emancipation flourished so fast was that the enslaved knew from ***before*** the start that the war would constitute a colossal freedom opportunity.
So after my contradiction last weekend of a WP online commenter who thought reviewer Adam Goodheart's comment about inattention to the Black outlook was just gratuitous DEI stuff, I was glad a few days later to see the NYT reviewer complain as Goodheart had done.
And I was glad to see this KML observation: "Larson employs the term 'escape-minded Blacks,' a curious turn of phrase that suggests there were ‘bondage-minded Blacks.'"
"Escape-minded"? Geez.
But then, even in 2024 you still sometimes see the Fort Monroe freedom story of May 1861 told with glorification of General Butler but without even the simple decency of naming Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend--even though those freedom-striving, enterprising, risk-taking slavery escapees made the first, ACTIVE decision and the general made the second, REACTIVE one. (Well, really, Steve; they were just "slaves," after all, weren't they now?)
That wasn't the first attempt by escapees to get sanctuary, but it was the first to take place at the Union's mighty, and mighty symbolic, bastion in Confederate Virginia-and the first to succeed, making, according to Adam Goodheart (in the NYT sesquicentennial "Disunion" series), the first federal contradiction of constitutional protection of slavery.
(Often I hear, "Well, what if the general had sent them back?" My answer: "Do you really suppose that out of 4 million enslaved, there wouldn't have been another attempt, and another, and another?")
Something notable here is that Goodheart himself has led in calling for that escape-mindedness to become part of national civic memory. Good example: His 2011 New York Times Magazine article "How Slavery Really Ended in America"--which is set at Fort Monroe. Here's the gift link:
Point Comfort, of course, is the name of the strategic Chesapeake Bay sand spit that Captain John Smith first fortified in 1609, that saw British North American slavery begin in 1619, that became Fort Monroe, and that saw the Fort Monroe freedom events of May 1861--events that Edward L. Ayers has called "the greatest moment in American history" because they signaled slavery's demise.
Yes, Mr. Larson, some of those Black folks were "escape-minded." They were the most American Americans of all.
While I thought Coe's comment about Larson's failure to acknowledge enslaved people more directly was justified, I thought the overall review was mean spirited and shaded into criticisms for not writing the kind of book that she would write. Never a good idea.
While I think we need to acknowledge the role the enslaved played in moving the war along and helping to bring about emancipation, we also need to recognize that military events played a key role. The war created the opportunity for self-emancipation and the events leading up to the firing on Fort Sumter helped to make that possibility a reality.
Larson's choice of words and interpretive choices are the result of decisions about what kind of narrative he wanted to write and who he wanted to explore to help tell that story. He has every right to do so and we have the obligation to point out the consequences of such choices.
"[W]e also need to recognize that military events played a key role."
Yes.
For most of two decades--beginning with the politics of determining the post-Army future of Fort Monroe at the 1619 place, Point Comfort, Virginia--I've been advocating a better balance between recognition of the hand of constituted authority in emancipation's evolution and recognition of the hand of ordinary people.
That better balance has been slowly evolving. My Substack monitors and advocates it. But here's my point: What I learn over and over again is that people are right who say, hey, waiddaminnet, ain't no emancipation in the first place without Union forces' sacrifices.
All I can say is, Amen--though when I can, I also note that those forces included something like 180,000 Black soldiers and 20,000 Black sailors, more than half of whom were formerly enslaved. (Important to acknowledge that KML knows in particular a thing or two about all of that!)
That stipulation about Union forces' sacrifices is fundamental and requires constant awareness. But in my biz--with its foundational emphasis on self-emancipation--all I can do is try to keep spotlighting it.
That's why one of the running footers I use on my Substack asks:
Who freed enslaved Americans? Union forces, President Lincoln, politicians? Anybody else?
Whoops. The NYT reviewer wrote the escape-mindedness observation that I attributed to KML.
(A blunder for sure, but maybe not way out of the spirit of this that KML did write: "The problem is that Larson allows slaveholders to narrate the experience of the enslaved. Unless you believe that slavery was the natural condition of Black people, all of them were'escape-minded' even if they never attempted to physically run away.")
I haven't read the reviews or the book and have only listened to the Fresh Air interview. He kept talking about "honor" as a motivating factor for White southerners and military men, but it struck me as a cartoon version of honor and not the historiographical concept from the 1980s.
Just have to be a situation where I'm glad if someone gets something from it and wants more, but it's just not for me.
This looks like another Erik Larson book that I will have to read despite some of the negative points mentioned here. I have enjoyed too many of his other books dealing with history and how events transpire and overlap with the common and not so common people that we are surrounded by.
Many of his characters are caught up with the bigger events surrounding their activities and it is good to see how history interacts with us all.
This subject of the prelude to the Civil War is particularly interesting and I would recommend a short book titled "And The War Came: The Six Months That Tore America Apart," by Jamie Malanowski. He was the lead writer of the New York Times' Disunion blog during the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and it is well worth the read for anybody who wants to attempt to comprehend that period of time.
It is made up of primary source material, original letters, newspaper articles and speeches from those six months and is chronologically ordered on a weekly basis. It is fascinating to read the words of the people of the time from the politicians to the common people writing to each other about their feelings, from both sides of the argument. History comes alive when we can empathize with those who have born the travails of the past!
Thanks for your thoughtful essay (and replies to comments). I think I'll give this book a miss. While recognizing that you have read it and I haven't (important!), it sounds like too much is missing from Larson's account for me, particularly African American voices and experience. The resulting objectifying descriptions are also a turn-off (he sounds like he's talking about livestock, with his "Blacks" and "females"). I imagine, for example, that enslaved people were glad to escape not only the supervision of overseers at Christmas but also their routine violence. Whether either overseers or "masters" took a break from sexual violence over the holidays seems doubtful, especially for multiracial and -generational abuser and rapist Hammond. As to Southern honor, "Field of Blood" gives an outstanding description of how that worked in practice - does Larson acknowledge that reality or take the word at face value?
While one could argue that telling a political story requires only the voices of those empowered to speak in the political arena, it would be fair to readers to say so. Does Larson do that?
On that basis, however, one could argue for a history of the New York Married Women's Property Act that excludes detail about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (outside their testimony). I wouldn't be interested in that either.
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the rest of the book as much as you have the first part.
Well said.
"While one could argue that telling a political story requires only the voices of those empowered to speak in the political arena, it would be fair to readers to say so. Does Larson do that? "
No.
I find this discussion really interesting. In my view it reflects one of the historiographical debates that i think bubbles along just below the semi-amicable surface of most contemporary historical scholarship. Can you tell any aspect of the story of the American Civil War without writing about the enslave? There is a strong current in contemporary Civil War scholarship that I think would argue no. I am however not so sure that is the case, and it strikes me that given what I understand Larson's topic to be that is what he has done. I am not suggesting those individual stories are not important but sometimes we have to take a step back from studying the individual trees and focus on the entire forest. But, I have to add I think it is impossible to tell the story of the period between the election of 1860 and the firing on Fort Sumpter with out talking about the abolitionist movement and its leaders. In particular African-American leaders like Fredrick Douglas. If Larson has indeed given Douglas and the abolitionist movement the limited amount of attention described that is a serious failing.
References to slavery appear throughout the book. Larson does not ignore the importance of slavery as a catalyst of secession and in shaping the outlook of many of the characters that drive this particular story. I just read a section in which Larson mentions the work that enslaved workers performed in constructing artillery positions around Charleston Harbor in early 1861. The criticism is that he chose not to focus on a specific Black individual to tell this story. That certainly has consequences, but I don't think that he ignores slavery and I don't believe that it renders the book unreadable. Far from it. Thanks for the comment, Michael.
Maybe what I said did not come out as I intended; I am pretty sure you cannot write about our Civil War with out mentioning some aspect of slavery. But I am less sure about the necessity of focusing on specific Black individual or individuals to tell that story, depending on what the story you are trying to tell.
Are you and Dave Powell coordinating this effort to deplete my retirement accounts? <VBG>
I am going to attempt to defend Larson's choice of narrative, somewhat, which is kind of crazy because I don't even own the book (yet). The book appears to be intended to tell the story of what is commonly known as the "Secession Winter," and in that tale, the white enslaving oligarchy was driving the events in the South, thus they get the focus of the tale---it is, after all, men like Hammond and Ruffin who were driving events, so it is appropriate, even necessary, for Larson to focus on men like Hammond and Ruffin. This book appears to me to be the story of a contest between the white power structure in the North and the even whiter power structure in the South, and how they were unable (largely because the fire-eaters did not want it to happen) to reach an accommodation before war broke out. I *am* disappointed in the apparent minimal treatment of Douglass, because I am sure that the black population of the North had views on everything going on, and Douglass would have been an important voice for them. But the sad truth is that the enslaved population in the South had virtually no influence on events, THAT I AM AWARE OF. (If, in fact, they did have some influence, I'm totally unaware of it, and would love to be educated. Politely.) So I think the criticism of the author on this point is at least possibly a tad misplaced.
This is certainly not a social history, but a much more traditional narrative. I think it comes down, as you said, to wanting to tell a certain story and to focus on specific characters to help move the narrative along. The problems with the interpretation have everything to do with those choices. It's well worth reading if you are looking for an entertaining escape.
Re the provisionally advanced proposition that "the enslaved population in the South had virtually no influence on events" just before the war:
Here are a few possibly relevant thoughts from the late Ira Berlin's little 2015 book _The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States_. Berlin founded and led the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland. At the end I ask a question.
Thoughts from _The Long Emancipation_:
* Slavery's demise was not "the work of a moment, even if that moment was a great civil war." Instead it was a nearly century-long process, entwined with the larger transatlantic emancipation struggle.
* In the antebellum period, Black people "took the lead in demanding freedom."
* Black people held primacy in slavery's demise; no "one was more responsible for smashing the shackles of slavery than the slaves." This is way too little recognized, Berlin thought, because of an unsupportable supposition that "the hand of constituted authority" mattered enormously more than did the mere "hand of ordinary people."
* By the middle of the century, the nearly four million enslaved had made the U.S. "the largest slave society in the world." Between a thousand and five thousand Americans escaped enslavement yearly between 1830 and 1860. The leaks "threatened both the material and ideological foundation upon which the slave regime rested."
My question:
To what extent, if any, is that framing factually grounded, and if it's so grounded, to what extent, if any, does it support the two book reviewers' and KML's misgivings about the book's reported lack of attention to the prewar Black factor?
I can't offer an informed opinion on Berlin's thesis being well-grounded, as I have not read his book, but I'm willing to accept it, based on his reputation. If the primary agency of the enslaved in their own emancipation (during the antebellum period) was their ability and willingness to attempt escape, then I think it makes my point. In the context of the political dynamics of the Secession Winter, any increase in escape attempts would seem to me to have an, at most, marginal effect. I do seem to recall there was no small amount of Southern concern and even near-panic over the issue, based on a number of rumored plots of local slave uprisings. It might have been a good idea for Larson to have mined this vein, as it would no doubt link up with Southern anxiety/outrage over John Brown's raid, as well as highlight Southern hypocrisy over the "faithful slave who was willing to slit Southern throats in the night." If, as Kevin suggests, Larson's purpose was not to write a scholarly tome but a traditional narrative of the events of the Secession Winter, then I think he gets to write the book he wants to write. (And reviewers and scholars get to bemoan his narrative choices and missed opportunities.)
Thanks. I'm grateful for the fair hearing, and I'm paying attention.
I should point out that Larson references the fear of slave uprisings, leading up to and after Lincoln's election, among enslavers. Again, it's important to note that Larson does not ignore slavery as the primary driver of secession.
Thanks for this affirmation that Black Americans were as important as anyone in nearly everything about the Civil War--despite the unconscious, unintended, but nevertheless pernicious systemic racism that relegates them to supposed feckless, passive bystanderhood.
I'm no historian, but I can read, and it's pretty clear to me that in fact the reason the movement that some historians call self-emancipation flourished so fast was that the enslaved knew from ***before*** the start that the war would constitute a colossal freedom opportunity.
So after my contradiction last weekend of a WP online commenter who thought reviewer Adam Goodheart's comment about inattention to the Black outlook was just gratuitous DEI stuff, I was glad a few days later to see the NYT reviewer complain as Goodheart had done.
And I was glad to see this KML observation: "Larson employs the term 'escape-minded Blacks,' a curious turn of phrase that suggests there were ‘bondage-minded Blacks.'"
"Escape-minded"? Geez.
But then, even in 2024 you still sometimes see the Fort Monroe freedom story of May 1861 told with glorification of General Butler but without even the simple decency of naming Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend--even though those freedom-striving, enterprising, risk-taking slavery escapees made the first, ACTIVE decision and the general made the second, REACTIVE one. (Well, really, Steve; they were just "slaves," after all, weren't they now?)
That wasn't the first attempt by escapees to get sanctuary, but it was the first to take place at the Union's mighty, and mighty symbolic, bastion in Confederate Virginia-and the first to succeed, making, according to Adam Goodheart (in the NYT sesquicentennial "Disunion" series), the first federal contradiction of constitutional protection of slavery.
(Often I hear, "Well, what if the general had sent them back?" My answer: "Do you really suppose that out of 4 million enslaved, there wouldn't have been another attempt, and another, and another?")
Something notable here is that Goodheart himself has led in calling for that escape-mindedness to become part of national civic memory. Good example: His 2011 New York Times Magazine article "How Slavery Really Ended in America"--which is set at Fort Monroe. Here's the gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pU0.XZJ2.SvesAPwk4Cch&smid=url-share
But there are also Goodheart's 2011 book, "1861: The Civil War Awakening" and his 2004 American Scholar article "Reaching Point Comfort":
https://theamericanscholar.org/reaching-point-comfort/
Point Comfort, of course, is the name of the strategic Chesapeake Bay sand spit that Captain John Smith first fortified in 1609, that saw British North American slavery begin in 1619, that became Fort Monroe, and that saw the Fort Monroe freedom events of May 1861--events that Edward L. Ayers has called "the greatest moment in American history" because they signaled slavery's demise.
Yes, Mr. Larson, some of those Black folks were "escape-minded." They were the most American Americans of all.
While I thought Coe's comment about Larson's failure to acknowledge enslaved people more directly was justified, I thought the overall review was mean spirited and shaded into criticisms for not writing the kind of book that she would write. Never a good idea.
While I think we need to acknowledge the role the enslaved played in moving the war along and helping to bring about emancipation, we also need to recognize that military events played a key role. The war created the opportunity for self-emancipation and the events leading up to the firing on Fort Sumter helped to make that possibility a reality.
Larson's choice of words and interpretive choices are the result of decisions about what kind of narrative he wanted to write and who he wanted to explore to help tell that story. He has every right to do so and we have the obligation to point out the consequences of such choices.
Agree with that take on Coe’s review!
"[W]e also need to recognize that military events played a key role."
Yes.
For most of two decades--beginning with the politics of determining the post-Army future of Fort Monroe at the 1619 place, Point Comfort, Virginia--I've been advocating a better balance between recognition of the hand of constituted authority in emancipation's evolution and recognition of the hand of ordinary people.
That better balance has been slowly evolving. My Substack monitors and advocates it. But here's my point: What I learn over and over again is that people are right who say, hey, waiddaminnet, ain't no emancipation in the first place without Union forces' sacrifices.
All I can say is, Amen--though when I can, I also note that those forces included something like 180,000 Black soldiers and 20,000 Black sailors, more than half of whom were formerly enslaved. (Important to acknowledge that KML knows in particular a thing or two about all of that!)
That stipulation about Union forces' sacrifices is fundamental and requires constant awareness. But in my biz--with its foundational emphasis on self-emancipation--all I can do is try to keep spotlighting it.
That's why one of the running footers I use on my Substack asks:
Who freed enslaved Americans? Union forces, President Lincoln, politicians? Anybody else?
Whoops. The NYT reviewer wrote the escape-mindedness observation that I attributed to KML.
(A blunder for sure, but maybe not way out of the spirit of this that KML did write: "The problem is that Larson allows slaveholders to narrate the experience of the enslaved. Unless you believe that slavery was the natural condition of Black people, all of them were'escape-minded' even if they never attempted to physically run away.")
I haven't read the reviews or the book and have only listened to the Fresh Air interview. He kept talking about "honor" as a motivating factor for White southerners and military men, but it struck me as a cartoon version of honor and not the historiographical concept from the 1980s.
Just have to be a situation where I'm glad if someone gets something from it and wants more, but it's just not for me.
As you might expect, Larson doesn't explore the concept of honor as understood by historians. It doesn't do much explanatory work.
This looks like another Erik Larson book that I will have to read despite some of the negative points mentioned here. I have enjoyed too many of his other books dealing with history and how events transpire and overlap with the common and not so common people that we are surrounded by.
Many of his characters are caught up with the bigger events surrounding their activities and it is good to see how history interacts with us all.
This subject of the prelude to the Civil War is particularly interesting and I would recommend a short book titled "And The War Came: The Six Months That Tore America Apart," by Jamie Malanowski. He was the lead writer of the New York Times' Disunion blog during the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and it is well worth the read for anybody who wants to attempt to comprehend that period of time.
It is made up of primary source material, original letters, newspaper articles and speeches from those six months and is chronologically ordered on a weekly basis. It is fascinating to read the words of the people of the time from the politicians to the common people writing to each other about their feelings, from both sides of the argument. History comes alive when we can empathize with those who have born the travails of the past!
You will definitely enjoy the book, Patrick.