April 1865 was a month that could have unraveled the nation. Instead, it saved it. Here Jay Winik offers a brilliant new look at the Civil War's final days that will forever change the way we see the war's end and the nation's new beginning. Uniquely set within the larger sweep of history, filled with rich profiles of outsize figures, fresh iconoclastic scholarship, and a gripping narrative, this is a masterful account of the thirty most pivotal days in the life of the United States.
It was not inevitable that the Civil War would end as it did, or that it would end at all well. Indeed, it almost didn't. Time and again, critical moments could have plunged the nation back into war or fashioned a far harsher, more violent, and volatile peace. Now, in a superbly told story, Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history as never before. This one month witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond; a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrilla warfare; Lee's harrowing retreat; and then Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later, and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation. In the end, April 1865 emerges as not just the tale of the war's denouement, but the story of the making of our nation.
Provocative, bold, exquisitely rendered, and stunningly original, April 1865 is the first major reassessment of the Civil War's close and is destined to become one of the great stories of American history.
About the Author: Jay Winik, writer and historian, has had a distinguished government career and is now a senior scholar at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. A regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, his first book, On the Brink, a chronicle of the end of the Cold War, won wide critical acclaim. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
There are a few books that belong on the shelf of every Civil War buff: James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, one of the better Abraham Lincoln biographies, something on Robert E. Lee, perhaps Shelby Foote's massive trilogy The Civil War. Add Jay Winik's wonderful April 1865 to the list. This is one of those rare, shining books that takes a new look at an old subject and changes the way we think about it. Winik shows that there was nothing inevitable about the end of the Civil War, from the fall of Richmond to the surrender at Appomattox to the murder of Lincoln. It all happened so quickly, in what "proved to be perhaps the most moving and decisive month not simply of the Civil War, but indeed, quite likely, in the life of the United States."
Things might have been rather different, too. "What emerges from the panorama of April 1865 is that the whole of our national history could have been altered but for a few decisions, a quirk of fate, a sudden shift in luck." When Lee abandoned Richmond, for instance, his soldiers rendezvoused at a nearby town called Amelia Court House. There, the general expected to find boxcars full of food for his hungry troops. But "a mere administrative mix-up" left his army empty-handed and may have limited Lee's options in the days to come. Or what if Lee had decided not to surrender at all, but to turn his resourceful army into an outfit of guerrilla fighters who would harass federal officials? National reconciliation might have become impossible as the whole South turned into a region plagued with violence and terrorism. For the Union, "there would be no real rest, no real respite, no true amity, nor, for that matter, any real sense of victory--only an amorphous state of neither war nor peace, raging like a low-level fever." One of Lee's officers actually proposed this scenario to his commander in those final hours; America is fortunate Lee didn't choose this path.
Winik is an exceptionally good storyteller. April 1865 is full of memorable images and you-are-there writing. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for that momentous month and a sharpened understanding of why and how the Civil War was fought. Let it be said plainly: April 1865 is a magnificent work, surely the best book on the Civil War to be published in some time. --John J. Miller
-- Publishers Weekly - starred review "Popular history at its best. . . . Masterful. This book is a triumph."
Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of No Ordinary Time, winner of the Pulitzer Prize "April 1865 is a superb piece of history. Jay Winik is a master storyteller with a remarkable tale to tell."
James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, winner of the Pulitzer Prize "Jay Winik's April 1865 is a book that fully measures up to the importance of its subject."
Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times and A History of the American People "... exciting and penetrating. It is history as it ought to be written -- well researched, and as readable as a novel."
Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center of American Studies at the University of New Orleans "The last days of the Civil War come alive again... A gripping page-turner of a book."
Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War and Lee and His Generals in War and Memory "This engaging book takes readers on a fascinating journey."
Robert Dallek, author of Lone Star Rising and Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times "Jay Winik has written a mesmerizing study of April 1865. It is a brilliantly written account."
San Francisco Chronicle " [A] comprehensive, essential volume ..[the] interviews are like keys to the many rooms of [Ginsberg's] expansive consciousness."
Richard Norton Smith, author of Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation and Director, Gerald R. Ford Museum "With cinematic sweep and novelistic detail, Jay Winik reintroduces us to the thirty most momentous days on the American calendar."