The Demon of Unrest

The questions about a civil war are, sadly, no longer off limits. History is a great teacher, and Erik Larson’s superb book The Demon of Unrest is an important place to start that civil war lesson in this week of Lincoln’s birth. It is an important and enthralling book.

The Demon of Unrest, published in 2024, tells the story of Fort Sumter–the battle that began the War Between the States/America’s Civil War. The lead-up to the battle and the belief War could be avoided play a central role, with Fort Sumter acting as the catalyst. The book ends as the War begins and so the tale could not be more relevant than it is today as we ponder our nation’s future.

Larson’s book revolves around Maj. Robert Anderson, the commander of the Charleston Harbor Fort. Sumter is in disrepair when Anderson arrives with several hundred regular army men on December 27, 1860. He is sympathetic, as are many in the military, with the South–we famously recall that the Genl. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate Army, was a Virginian with deep ties to the Union. In what will be one of dozens of ironic twists, Anderson’s former student, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, leads the South Carolina military in Charleston, and they each remain cordial even as the shelling begins. Indeed, regular U.S. mail service continued between Charleston and the North nearly up to the time Fort Sumter fell, with the soldiers of the Fort and Maj. Anderson sending regular letters, delivered without being opened by the Southern mail carriers, as a matter of honor.

The origins of the Civil War have, of course, been the subject of endless discussion, argument, historical and philosophical analysis. In this enthralling book Larson recounts the origins not simply in the story of Abraham Lincoln, but more impressively in the story of the Southern leaders. It is an impressive historical undertaking I have not seen before for an author to address how the Southern elite, built on the value of slaves, undertook the decades long struggle to decide what they would do to preserve their way of life. The political intrigue of Carolina politics, with its various affairs–both political and otherwise–provides an intriguing background. Real humans, real families, real wealth and all that it might lead to in calculations and miscalculations.

In one of the most memorable acts of Civil War scholarship I can recall, Larson undertakes a day-by-day recounting of what was happening in the North and the South. Comparing what was happening in the first days of the Lincoln presidency with those of Jefferson Davis, the Southern President, makes for compelling storytelling. (It is not hard to imagine a similar story being told one hundred sixty years from now about Trump and the Left.)

We tend to think only of the outcome–the bloodiest war, by far, in American history. But what remains more important in this day is to consider the way in which an entire country slouched toward its Gomorrah. Many believed until the shots were fired on Sumter that War would be avoided. Lincoln, in fact, believed, as did many of his advisors, that a sentiment to preserve the Union would rise-up in the Carolina’s and throughout the South. In retrospect that seems naive given the stakes, but here, in this story, so masterfully told by Eric Larson, such a belief (such a hope) is neither naive nor improbable.

Again, it is rare that a tale so often told can be retold with such superb page-turning drama. And, I might add, such evenhandedness. Which is most certainly not to say that there is any sugarcoating of the evils of human bondage/slavery/greed. But to understand how a war, particularly a civil war among neighbors, friends and relatives, may happen, one must dig much deeper, and Larson attempts to do just that.

As I mentioned at the outset, this book ends as the Civil War begins, excepting only a brief Epilogue. The author leaves to the reader to contemplate what might have been.

The Demon of Unrest (A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War) adds an important chapter to our appreciation of what the American Civil War/the War Between the States means to our heritage. It is a great read you will find, as I did, hard to put down.

Judge Jim Troupis

Retired Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge. President Trump’s attorney in 2020. Speaker, columnist, talk radio guest, father, grandfather and fisherman. Lawfare Triage | Where Deception Dies