Starr Center for the Study of the American. Includes black-and-white photos and illustrations. Adam Goodheart is the author of 1861:The Civil War Awakening. Hailed as “exhilarating….Inspiring…Irresistible…” by The New York Times Book Review, Adam Goodheart’s bestseller 1861 is an important addition to the Civil War canon. Their stories take us from the corridors of the White House to the slums of Manhattan, from the waters of the Chesapeake to the deserts of Nevada, from Boston Common to Alcatraz Island, vividly evoking the Union at its moment of ultimate crisis and decision. Goodheart says it’s no coincidence that the holiday was proposed in 1861, just two months after the attack on Fort Sumter that started the Civil War. Early in that fateful year, Americans began to rally around an idea of remaking the country into a morally coherent.

1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. A gripping and original account of how the Civil War began and a second American revolution unfolded, setting Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness and millions of slaves on the road to freedom.Īn epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields, 1861 introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes-among them an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer’s wife, an idealistic band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, a community of Virginia slaves, and a young college professor who would one day become president. In time for the 150th anniversary of our defining national event: an original and altogether gripping account of how the Civil War began.

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