Cry Havoc!: The Crooked Road to Civil War, 1861

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Penguin, Dec 18, 2007 - History - 336 pages
A "compact, engrossing narrative"* that vividly reimagines the events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War

What separates historian Nelson D. Lankford's engaging examination of the causes of the Civil War from other books on the subject is its willingness to consider the alternative possibilities to history. Cry Havoc! recounts in riveting detail the small quirks of timing, character, and place that influenced the huge trajectory of events during eight critical weeks from Lincoln's inauguration through the explosion at Fort Sumter and the embattled president's response to it. It addresses the what-ifs, the might-have-beens, and the individual personalities that played into circumstances-a chain of indecisions and miscalculations, influenced by swollen vanity and wishful thinking-that gave shape to the dreadful conflict to come.
 

Contents

Harpers Ferry October 1859
1
WAIT AND SEE
24
CONTRIVANCES OF DELAY
45
COLLISION COURSE
59
FLASH POINT
75
TIDINGS OF WAR
88
CHEATED AND DECEIVED
103
JOHN BROWN IN GRAY
126
ALONE
155
BROAD STRIPES AND BRIGHT STARS
171
SUNDAY REST
181
WILD EXCITEMENT
193
COUNTLESS RUMORS
206
DISMEMBERING THE NATION
219
Spring 1865
235
Copyright

BURNING BRIDGES
137

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About the author (2007)

Nelson Lankford edits The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the quarterly journal of the Virginia Historical Society. A resident of Richmond, he is the co-editor of Eye of the Storm and Images from the Storm and author of The Last American Aristocrat.

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