Book Review: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson
I wouldn’t say I have a particular penchant for Civil War stories, but this book caught my attention due to its relevance to the modern era of political antagonism and uncertainty. The author researched and wrote the book during the COVID pandemic and writes in his acknowledgements notes at the end of the book that “political unrest had heightened the chaos of the pandemic, and for whatever reason I began wondering, Exactly how did the Civil War begin? What really happened at Fort Sumter?” That’s not to say that Larson considers the confusion of the last half-decade or so to be similar to the state of the Union when it was about to plunge into civil war, but rather that as he wrote this compelling book he was also witnessing our modern nation in turmoil. As a result, the prose and story structure carry an intensity and immediacy that serves as a warning: our nation’s government and people should remain together on the path of freedom and unity upon which the country was founded.
In The Demon of Unrest, Larson uses the buildup leading to the attack on Fort Sumter, a fortress on an artificial island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, an attack that ignited the war between the northern and southern states, as the focal point of his story. In fact, South Carolina, where the city of Charleston is located, was the first state to secede from the Union. As tensions mounted, more states followed. The overwhelming issue, as Larson explains, was that of slavery. The wealthy members of the southern aristocracy were fully aware that their affluent lifestyles were dependent on their ability to enslave their fellow humans. Without the Black slaves that they depended on, they felt, they would be unable to sustain and profit from the vast cotton plantations that were the mainstay of the southern economy. And they deeply resented northern abolitionists who thought otherwise. As Larson puts it, “the thing that the South most resented was the inalterable fact that the North, like the rest of the modern world, condemned slavery as a fundamental evil. In so doing, abolitionists and their allies impugned the honor of the entire Southern white race, for if slavery was indeed evil, then the South itself was evil, and its echelons of gentlemen, the chivalry, were nothing more than moral felons.” In hindsight we can see the grievous error in this logic, as could the North and the rest of the world at the time, but the southern aristocracy were fully convinced of their righteousness and were willing to fight and die to preserve their top-heavy status quo.
Another important factor that raised the southerners’ ire was the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Despite his initial reassurances, they were sure that he was going to join the abolitionists in abolishing slavery. At the same time that the situation at Fort Sumter became increasingly nerve-racking, Lincoln, while awaiting the formality of the final electoral count, was making the long journey from Illinois to Washington D.C. for his inauguration. As he did, rumors of assassination conspiracies abounded.
Larson masterfully cuts from the preparations of the small Union garrison at Fort Sumter to Lincoln’s journey to key players in the southern government and military, all the time leading up to the final spark that ignited the war, the actual southern attack on Fort Sumter. Once that happened, the war began in earnest.
This book is a vivid reminder that regardless of how much fiction we can conjure up, the truth of the past and present trumps it. Larson did extensive meticulous research to put together this story, including diving into old letters, journals, and diaries. As hard as some of it is to believe, it’s all true. It serves as a significant cautionary tale: no matter what our political differences are, we need to remain united and respectful of the rights and needs of all our compatriots and, for that matter, of all humankind. Highly recommended.
