1861: The Civil War Awakening

Oh my goodness, what a disappointment. I had been looking forward to reading 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart for several months but it just didn't live up to what I hoped it would be. Mainly this is due to three factors:

1) The biggest factor is that the book ends on the eve of the first Battle of Manassas in July 1861. So really, the book should be called 1861: The First Six Months. I understand, I think, why Goodheart chose to end here - he has chosen to write not a military history, but instead simply to attempt to capture the zeitgeist of a nation on the brink of war. Still, I might not have anticipated the book so much had I known it would end before any of the real "action" began.

2) He devotes a tremendous amount of text to James Garfield. Now, Garfield is an interesting guy, but I'm afraid that compared to the portrait of Garfield Candice Millard paints in Destiny of the Republic, Goodheart's Garfield is longwinded and dull.

3) Not surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln is the book's protagonist. Yet, even Lincoln loses much of his eloquence in these pages. Moreover, his life story, especially his rise from poverty and struggles with depression also seems to receive short shrift. (Granted, this book is not about Lincoln, but about how the times made him and he the times, but I still felt these parts of his life could have been handled better.)

My disappointment comes, too, from the fact that the book started so strongly. The prologue is beautiful; I could picture the bundle of letters folded and faded and see the poof of dust released as the ribbon was untied for the first time in a century. In other places, too, 1861 is shot through with brilliance. The comparison of General Butler to the East German captain left holding the phone, literally, as a crowd of thousands pressed against the gates of Checkpoint Charlie in November 1989 is writing at its finest - from one era to the next we see small decisions, little ripples, that grow into tsunamis. Yet, in the end these examples were too few or too far between. Just as I'd become convinced, again, that this really was a good book, the prose would become flat and leaden. Of course, the last time I'd decided I liked the book, it ended abruptly a few pages later. 

Whatever its strengths or weaknesses, 1861 does allow the reader to consider whether one would behave in the same manner as the gentleman - and one or two ladies - in this book. In most cases, the answer for me was no, but I believe that might have something to do with the benefit of 150 years of hindsight.

Two stars.

......

A week later I'm still thinking about this book, and how the lens of history changes great events of the times into small ones in history (ever heard of the Wide Awakes? or the St. Louis riots of 1861?) and small(ish) events into great ones.