Chronologically taking apart the month of April, 1865 is not a linear task. Each significant event in the month - the final skirmishes and battles between two weary armies just before the surrender of Lee's army to Grant at Appomattox, the assassination of Lincoln just days later, the succession of a new President, and the capture of Lincoln's assassin - demands generous portions of back story. Each backgrounder encompasses many smaller stories.



Author Jay Winik is more than up to the task of shaping a great narrative. His prose style gives evidence of a thorough mastery of this subject - it reads like a great novel. Civil War books are a whole separate industry; we are drawn to the subject like a kid who repeats a favorite roller coaster ride - for the terra firma to appreciate at ride's end. If you want a brilliant summary of the most important dramas addressed by our Civil War with just the minimum of battle narrative, this book delivers.



The great pearl in this book is the following wisdom: the Disney ending we're so conditioned to expect by our lack of real tribulation wasn't foreordained. The United States was not "meant" to be, it was "made" to work by leaders we were fortunate to have. Winik asks: WHAT IF Lee (who personally lost everything) had been bitter, had decided to fight on with guerilla tactics? (there was not a man in the South that would have said "no" to him...) WHAT IF Sherman and Grant had been inclined to rub the South's noses in their defeat? WHAT IF Lincoln's priority had been something other than reunification? and WHAT IF the coordinated assassination plot had been successfully carried out, so that in addition to Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward had also perished? (Seward nearly died from stab wounds) - how would Washington have handled executive succession in that case? Not new questions to anyone that has spent time with this subject, but always worth revisiting.



Winik makes the case that civil war rarely serves as the final straw before a lasting peace - the typical outcome is multi-generational hatred and bloodshed. He gives a brief and fine summary of the imperfections that bedeviled the post-bellum United States to remind the reader that our present Nation, imperfect though it may be, wasn't merely gift-wrapped at war's end to our future selves.