From the Bookshelf of The Reading For Pleasure Book Club…

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Erik Larson

Start date: June 1, 2025

Finish date: July 31, 2025

Discussion: Archived Group Reads

Why we're reading this: Our group nonfiction read for June and July
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Archived Group Reads

August 2025 Fiction Group Read: The River We Remember, by William Kent Krueger
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last updated Sep 01, 2025 06:32AM

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What Members Thought

Jun 22, 2024 Teri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, presidents, read-in-2024

"...every writer in every time brings to the field a unique lens through which to view the world." Master storyteller and historian Erik Larson does just that in this detailed microhistory of the beginning of the Civil War. Utilizing official Civil War documents, letters, telegrams, and diaries, Larson analyzes the events in the six months prior to the firing of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the war. The battle over Fort Sumter, as Larson explains, is "...the greatest of ironies: In thirty-fo "...every writer in every time brings to the field a unique lens through which to view the world." Master storyteller and historian Erik Larson does just that in this detailed microhistory of the beginning of the Civil War. Utilizing official Civil War documents, letters, telegrams, and diaries, Larson analyzes the events in the six months prior to the firing of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the war. The battle over Fort Sumter, as Larson explains, is "...the greatest of ironies: In thirty-four hours of some of the fiercest bombardment the world had ever seen, no one was killed or even seriously injured, yet this bloodless attack would trigger a war that killed more Americans than any other conflict in the country's history."

Larson began work on this book during the COVID pandemic. With little ability to visit archives and physical resources, the author delved into what he had available to him, namely online resources and books by earlier historians. The one source that provided the spine of his thesis is The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies compiled by the U.S. Department of War. It is with these resources that Larson provides the reader with his unique lens with which to view the world in 1860-1865. Much of the book centers around the transfer of power from President Buchanan to Lincoln and the Presidential Inauguration of 1861, along with the rising tension between the North and South as eleven states ultimately left the Union and joined the Confederacy.

Besides Buchanan, Lincoln and a host of interesting characters like Edmund Ruffin, a Virginia planter and pro-slavery advocate who was credited with the first shot of the war, were two pivotal men who had to deal with their own internal demons while dealing with the demon of unrest in the country. The first was Robert Anderson, the Union Major who commanded Fort Sumter. He was a native Kentuckian who was a slave-holder but was fiercely loyal to the Union and held the fort as long as he could against his fellow Southerners. The second was General Robert E. Lee. He was a loyal commander in the Union army until his own state of Virginia seceded and joined the Confederacy. He considered slavery a "moral and political evil" and considered secession an "anarchy." He ultimately was loyal to his home state, joining the Confederacy, despite his personal views.

Larson also ties these events to an interesting topic of the Code Duello, a written code of conduct utilized by Southern gentlemen in one-on-one combat, or "the duel." This book is written in seven parts, and each part is loosely connected to one of the rules of the Code Duello and provides an interesting arc to Larson's lens. I'm on the fence as to whether Larson fully utilized this connection as well as he could have. Overall, it is a unique way of situating the events prior to the siege at Fort Sumter.

As with all of Erik Larson's books, I was thoroughly engrossed in his prose and storytelling. What will he write about next? ...more

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Jul 14, 2025 John Warner rated it really liked it

Shelves: jsw-2025, nonfiction, 19th-century, american-history, civil-war

Erik Larson's latest work is a meticulously reasearched account of the volatile six months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Through Larson's skill in storytelling, a famililar historical event reads like a political thriller. Although Erik Larson is not a historian by training, he uses primary sources to write his narrative like a historian. If history teachers would use his style of writing in teaching their classes, their classes would be ...more

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Sep 28, 2024 Mary Cronk rated it liked it

My book club selected this book. Since i like the author, i was happy about the choice.

I don’t think i ever would have selected a long book based on the events leading up to fort sumter and the civil war.

I found that most of the historical characters in the book were very unlikeable. Mary Chestnut is the main woman and she is just an awful person. Seward is a lizard. Anderson, the head of fort sumter is a confederate sympathizer. Of course, the author spends some time including criticism of LIn ...more

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