Lincoln and the First Shot

by Richard Nelson Current

Encapsulating the important political and military issues on the eve of the Civil War! Lincoln had hoped to realize his firm determination to preserve the Union through peaceful and nonprovocative measures. However, he was willing to accept war if he could avoid the blame for having started it. As events turned out, he was no more the aggressor than was Jefferson Davis. In these pages, Current retraces step by step the influences and events that shaped Lincoln's controversial April policy, beginning with the new president's rather furtive arrival in Washington and concluding with the mobilization for war. The Sumter question, as the author points out, "reflects and in turn casts light upon the national tradition of avoiding the 'first shot.' It concerns the events that led directly to the Civil War, the greatest of wars from the American point of view. And it involves problems of historical evidence and interpretation that have more fascination than even the best of ordinary puzzles."

Genres: History, Civil War

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Called "the dean of Lincoln scholars", Richard Nelson Current earned a B.A. in 1934 from Oberlin College, and M.A. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1935, a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1940. Among the institutions at which Current taught over the course of his career was Rutgers University, Hamilton College, Northern Michigan University, Lawrence University, Mills College, Salisbury State University, the University of Illinois, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1963.

27 years ago I took a night class about the Civil War offered by Ball State University in a middle school off campus. It was a great class and this was the first book that we discussed. The book covers the two month period from the day that Lincoln arrived in D.C. after he was elected President and the day that P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina.

When the Confederate states seceded they took over all Federal property, including forts and military bases. Two forts were not surrendered - Fort Pickens in Pensacola and Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter was always the most argued over because of the symbolism of being smack in the middle of the main port of the first state to secede.


Lincoln refused to give up the fort because he refused to give up any of the seceded states. South Carolina demanded the fort because they insisted they were part of a new country and they did not want a foreign power to have a fort blocking a port in their new country.

South Carolina was ready to fire on the fort but did not want to look like they were provoking a fight. A peaceful separation might still be possible. Lincoln was preparing to reinforce the fort if he could - but without provoking a fight. After all, the country might be peacefully reunited.

Neither side wanted to fire the first shot, but both sides could foresee the rush of patriotism that follow if their side were fired upon.

Historian Richard N. Current's description of the situation faced by both the North and the South at the beginning of the crisis was excellent and well done. But, his description of all of the plotting, fake peace proposals and sometimes outright confusion felt like he was stretching out the story to fill the pages of this book - like there was a minimum number of words he had to reach to fulfill his book contract.

So, I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

https://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2021...

[Monte Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book discusses the politics of the beginning of the Civil War and how Lincoln and Davis worked to get the other side to begin the conflict. It is well researched and shows how both sides seem to get what they wanted in being able to blame the other side for starting the shooting.

[Jukka]

Lincoln and the First Shot - Richard Current

A very balanced look at the involvement and intent by Lincoln and his administration with regard the military violence at Fort Sumter. That i completed this book on April 12th, 150 years after that event is odd coincidence. I unintendedly discovered this book at random a week back while looking for something entirely unrelated at the library.

A quote from the front of the book, ['diversity' here refers to the diversity of peoples opinions]:

With peace as the ideal and diversity as the fact, the people have not been willing to combine for the hardships and sacrifices of war except when convinced that someone, deliberately, satanically, has struck at them, their government, its symbols, of the idea of peace. Only then have Americans come together to take up the battle, with patriotism and fighting spirit.

But even then, the response has not always been unanimous. On occasion, dissenters have come forth to question whether the enemy's seeming act of aggression was quite genuine. Some of them have gone on to charge that, somehow, the president himself has either invented or contrived the announced attack. Indeed, the men in office, if they had motives for war, would also have reasons for making it appear that war had been forced upon them. If it did not appear so, they would meet extraordinary difficulty in rousing sufficient popular support.

Certainly the war presidents of recent times have taken pains to demonstrate that they did not make war upon another country but only accepted the war which the other country was already making upon their own.

Hmm! I thought Current was referring and making comparison to a quite recent 'war President' who found false reasons to initiate a war. This book was written in 1963 though, 40 years before all that.

A perspective i keep in mind, not in this book: Regardless the outcome at Sumter the objective of a patriot or man of peace would have been to continue efforts to prevent war after Sumter.

A very thought provoking book. It's only briefly touched here, but the intentions of Jefferson Davis should be a topic of interest as well.

If you're interested give this book a look, you may find its conclusions other than what you expect.

[Sean Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dry at times, and lacking details about the key personalities, but a fair treatment of this controversial event.