In our fraught era of social and political polarization,
we’ve become accustomed to hearing from pundits about how “there’s no
precedent for this” and “we’re in uncharted territory” here. On a superficial
level, of course that’s true. Our technology, our news media and modes of
communication, our population demographics and so many other things that shape
political behavior and life are very different now than they were earlier in
American history.
On a deeper level, though, the history of the United States contains far more examples of similar events and tendencies to those in our modern era than we may remember. As the old saying goes, history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. Fortunately, several excellent historians and social critics, most notably MSNBC’s popular anchor Rachel Maddow, have begun to turn their eyes and historical spotlights on earlier periods of conflict and strife in our nation’s history that resemble our own situation in important ways.
Erik Larson is one of the most popular and readable historians of recent years, and he has also provided us with a disturbing sense of historical parallel with his excellent new book, The Demon of Unrest. His usual storytelling approach is to revisit some event or period in history through the actions and memories of a small number of participants, to bring alive for the reader the lived experience of those who were there. He tries to recreate the look and feel of each era, and the period details and conditions that shaped it, through the lives and recollections of a small number of participants.
In Isaac’s Storm, he used this approach to revisit the calamity of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, and the birth of modern weather forecasting. In The Devil in the White City, Larson told the intriguing story of the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, and its architect and builder, along with the story of a notorious serial killer’s spree that happened nearby at the same time, and the dogged police investigation to apprehend him. Larson’s book In the Garden of Beasts captures the descent of German society in the 1930s into its Nazi nightmare, as experienced by an American diplomat and his family. Dead Wake portrays the sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania during World War I, and the experience of those aboard. And in The Splendid and the Vile, Larson gave us an inside look at the Churchill family’s travails, relationships and exploits during the Blitz.
Now Larson has turned his adroit historical storytelling to the months leading up to the beginning of the Civil War. The scene is primarily set in Charleston, South Carolina, and begins with the election of Abraham Lincoln as the next president of the United States in late 1860.
Larson’s main characters include the U.S. Army commander of Fort Sumter and the other defensive forts in Charleston Harbor; a Southern radical bent on fomenting southern secession from the United States; and a Charleston society lady, who kept detailed diaries of the social life of the city’s notables as they went about preparing for separation from the north.
Of course, the human drama of all this is obvious to us now, knowing what lies immediately ahead for these hapless humans going about their ordinary lives in the midst of a developing political crisis. The dramatic tension builds steadily throughout the book, as wrong assumptions are made on both sides about the intentions and beliefs of the people on the other side of the growing divide between north and south.
One of the great strengths of this book is the manner in which Larson explores belief systems and social norms in the world of America in the early 1860s. I’ve noticed of late that more and more recent works of history, whether in books, film or television, seem to display a heightened awareness of the centrality and importance of slavery to understanding our society, thanks no doubt in large part to works like The 1619 Project, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
This positive trend in giving appropriate significance to the social effects and role of slavery as an institution throughout American society is evident here too, as Larson delves into the extent to which the southern aristocracy perceived an existential threat to its way of life in the face of the growing northern abolitionist movement in the north, and in the western territories.
Larson details much about the southern
aristocracy that embraced the idea of secession. He talks about their own name
for themselves, “the Chivalry”, their sense of ancestral continuity and
entitlement going back to old world pre-colonial Europe, and their view of
themselves as the landed nobility of a near-feudal society. He describes the
extent to which the ancient “Code Duello” was widely accepted in the south as the
playbook for honorably resolving conflicts, through displays of manly bravery,
chivalry and valor. We begin to understand the deep differences between how members of the
political power structure of the south saw the world and its place in it, in
contrast to the more modern industrial managers and urbanized elites of the
north.
What resulted was a tragic misunderstanding with catastrophic results. Although both sides made beginning steps toward bolstering their offensive and defensive military capabilities in the months before the cannons first fired at Fort Sumter, neither side seemed to believe that the other side would resort to arms to resolve the crisis over the issues of slavery and abolition.
The north didn’t believe the south would truly push for secession from the union. The southern states, believing they faced an existential threat to their way of life, didn’t believe the north had the determination or the bravery to resist their secessionist plans. Both sides believed things would ultimately be resolved in the normal course of peaceful negotiations. Unfortunately, neither side understood that its demands, and its view of the appropriate outcome, would never be acceptable to the other side.
The book ultimately manages to convey two important points about the months leading up to the Civil War, points which feel eerily relevant to our own tumultuous political era. One is the extent to which war arose because two halves of American society had little or no sense of what the other half was thinking, or what was most important to them, and weren't able or willing to communicate effectively with each other. Situations were misjudged, bad decisions were made, actions were taken or not taken, all based on a fundamental misreading of the mood and beliefs of the other half of the country.
The other important insight is that we never really know what disaster awaits us just ahead, an idea as valuable to keep in mind now in our current situation as it was more than 150 years ago. We live our normal lives, and hope for the best. That’s what they did then, and it’s still what we have to do now. There are storm clouds all around us, but we don’t know if or when the storm will come.
This is an excellent social and political history of American society and individuals on the brink of a devastating civil war. Highly recommended.
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