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When It Was Grand: The Radical Republican History of the Civil War
A Civil War Monitor best book of 2020
A group biography of the activists who defended human rights and defined the Republican Party’s greatest hour
In 1862, the ardent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison summarized the events that were tearing apart the United “There is a war because there was a Republican Party. There was a Republican Party because there was an Abolition Party. There was an Abolition Party because there was Slavery.”
Garrison’s simple statement expresses the essential truths at the heart of LeeAnna Keith’s When It Was Grand . Here is the full story, dramatically told, of the Radical Republicans―the champions of abolition who helped found a new political party and turn it toward the extirpation of slavery. Keith introduces us to the idealistic Massachusetts preachers and philanthropists, rugged Midwestern politicians, and African American activists who collaborated to protect escaped slaves from their captors, to create and defend black military regiments and win the contest for the soul of their party. Keith’s fast-paced, deeply researched narrative gives us new perspective on figures ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Brown, to the gruff antislavery general John Fremont and his astute wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, and the radicals’ sometime critic and sometime partner Abraham Lincoln.
In the 1850s and 1860s, a powerful faction of the Republican Party stood for a demanding ideal of racial justice―and insisted that their party and nation live up to it. Here is a colorful, definitive account of their indelible accomplishment.
A group biography of the activists who defended human rights and defined the Republican Party’s greatest hour
In 1862, the ardent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison summarized the events that were tearing apart the United “There is a war because there was a Republican Party. There was a Republican Party because there was an Abolition Party. There was an Abolition Party because there was Slavery.”
Garrison’s simple statement expresses the essential truths at the heart of LeeAnna Keith’s When It Was Grand . Here is the full story, dramatically told, of the Radical Republicans―the champions of abolition who helped found a new political party and turn it toward the extirpation of slavery. Keith introduces us to the idealistic Massachusetts preachers and philanthropists, rugged Midwestern politicians, and African American activists who collaborated to protect escaped slaves from their captors, to create and defend black military regiments and win the contest for the soul of their party. Keith’s fast-paced, deeply researched narrative gives us new perspective on figures ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Brown, to the gruff antislavery general John Fremont and his astute wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, and the radicals’ sometime critic and sometime partner Abraham Lincoln.
In the 1850s and 1860s, a powerful faction of the Republican Party stood for a demanding ideal of racial justice―and insisted that their party and nation live up to it. Here is a colorful, definitive account of their indelible accomplishment.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published January 14, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 28, 2021
An interesting and informative book that I feel would have been improved with a tighter focus.
Keith has gathered a truly impressive collection of historical research about radical antislavery activists in the 1850s and 1860s, and follows this intellectual movement more-or-less chronologically through Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, John Brown, and the twists and turns of the Civil War. Along the way we learn of the struggles of radicals about whether to join the nascent Republican Party or remain independent from the half-measures it often endorsed, the fights among those who did join Lincoln's administration and army to pursue measures such as enlisting Black soldiers. Her primary goal is to revive the oft-forgotten or denigrated Radical wing of the Republican Party, to thrust into modern consciousness the determined actions to bring about the end of slavery and, even more, establish legal and even social equality between the races.
But Keith's accomplished research and able retelling often suffers from trying to do too much. Often the books has the impression of being a blizzard of names and anecdotes, one after the other, trying to remember if such-and-such a person has previously been introduced and if so, doing what. It is much easier to critique than to write, of course, but my first thought was that a tighter focus would have served the book better: perhaps focusing on the battle between radicals and conservatives for control of the Republican Party, or on the question of whether Blacks should take up arms to secure their own freedom (thus tying together John Brown and the battle over arming freedmen), or on the lives and careers of a handful of prominent radicals. As it was, the book often felt like it was jumping around from topic to topic, person to person. (I should also note that this book doesn't cover, except in summary, the post-war struggles over Reconstruction.)
This should be read as only moderate criticism; I still highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Civil War era. I should also note that an initial fear I had from the first few pages, that the book would primarily use Civil War history as a tool to comment on modern-day politics (and the modern-day Republican Party), proved unfounded: aside from a few comments in the introduction, and even fewer at the very end, the book maintained its explicit focus on history rather than current events (which is not to say that one cannot derive lessons from it about current events if one wanted to).
Keith has gathered a truly impressive collection of historical research about radical antislavery activists in the 1850s and 1860s, and follows this intellectual movement more-or-less chronologically through Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, John Brown, and the twists and turns of the Civil War. Along the way we learn of the struggles of radicals about whether to join the nascent Republican Party or remain independent from the half-measures it often endorsed, the fights among those who did join Lincoln's administration and army to pursue measures such as enlisting Black soldiers. Her primary goal is to revive the oft-forgotten or denigrated Radical wing of the Republican Party, to thrust into modern consciousness the determined actions to bring about the end of slavery and, even more, establish legal and even social equality between the races.
But Keith's accomplished research and able retelling often suffers from trying to do too much. Often the books has the impression of being a blizzard of names and anecdotes, one after the other, trying to remember if such-and-such a person has previously been introduced and if so, doing what. It is much easier to critique than to write, of course, but my first thought was that a tighter focus would have served the book better: perhaps focusing on the battle between radicals and conservatives for control of the Republican Party, or on the question of whether Blacks should take up arms to secure their own freedom (thus tying together John Brown and the battle over arming freedmen), or on the lives and careers of a handful of prominent radicals. As it was, the book often felt like it was jumping around from topic to topic, person to person. (I should also note that this book doesn't cover, except in summary, the post-war struggles over Reconstruction.)
This should be read as only moderate criticism; I still highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Civil War era. I should also note that an initial fear I had from the first few pages, that the book would primarily use Civil War history as a tool to comment on modern-day politics (and the modern-day Republican Party), proved unfounded: aside from a few comments in the introduction, and even fewer at the very end, the book maintained its explicit focus on history rather than current events (which is not to say that one cannot derive lessons from it about current events if one wanted to).
January 20, 2026
3 Stars ⭐️
I read for this class, yet found it honestly quite interesting! It is interesting to see history though the radical perspective the entire time.
I do think this could’ve been organized a bit better, as sometimes I felt we were jumping to so many different figures and times, I got confused.
Overall, a good book to learn more about one of the greatest stories in American history through figures like Lincoln, Douglass, Fremont, Brown, etc. 📚
I read for this class, yet found it honestly quite interesting! It is interesting to see history though the radical perspective the entire time.
I do think this could’ve been organized a bit better, as sometimes I felt we were jumping to so many different figures and times, I got confused.
Overall, a good book to learn more about one of the greatest stories in American history through figures like Lincoln, Douglass, Fremont, Brown, etc. 📚
March 24, 2021
The formation and rise of the Republican Party with a focus on its radical anti-slavery leftist wing. Covers 1854-1865, though amusingly doesn't even bother to address how or when the war ended, and gives only a brief glimpse at the progress, and backsliding, that Reconstruction brought. Which, honestly, at that point the omission didn't even surprise me as this is truly one of the worst histories I've read that still manages to be marginally informative. It's poorly organized, inattentive to detail, and I found the prose difficult to read.
There's no separate bibliography. Sources are cited in end notes and indicated with superscript numbers in the text, but not always. There are many quotes that are unattributed in the text and refer to no specific end note, forcing you to guess which adjacent note it's attached to and which source—of often multiple sources—it's from. More than a few citations were "as quoted in" another modern secondary source. I'm no historian, but that seems like the sort of thing you'd want to avoid. The index is insufficient and I know this because I was constantly digging around in there trying to find earlier references to things that were just dropped into the text with no explanation like I was already intimately familiar with them, which I wasn't because this book is not written in a way that teaches, informs, and reminds. Instead it acts like you already know most of this stuff. Its inattention to detail was a constant frustration. I often didn't know what year events were taking place. The smaller details—like how many men John Brown brought with him for his raid on Harpers Ferry—are also often omitted. Also larger details like what exactly his plan was. It's also inconsistent in identifying people as white or black.
And then let's talk about [Negro]. The n-word doesn't appear in this book, and I understand why an author might want to write around that. It's an upsetting word, but it's also part of our history, and Keith is sanitizing that history by replacing the n-word—at least, I have to assume this is what she's doing because at no point is it acknowledged in the text—with "[Negro]" in quoted material. This is imprecise, verges on authorial intrusion, and has the effect of masking racism and changing history.
In a letter to Radical Republican Senator Charles Sumner, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts wrote, according to Keith, that with the discrepancy in pay between white and black soldiers, "that 'the government means to disgrace and demean' by denying equal pay 'so that [the black soldier] may always be in his own eyes, and the eyes of all men "only a [Negro]."'"
Contrast that with Andrew's actual words, in full: "For fear the uniform may dignify the enfranchised slave, or make the black man seem like a free citizen, the government means to disgrace and degrade him, so that he may always be in his own eyes, and in the eyes of all men, ‘only a nigger.'"
Whether Andrew, a white abolitionist, was quoting someone specific or just wanted the power of the word without implicating himself in its use, I don't know, but his full statement is more layered than Keith's truncated version and has the benefit of being what Andrew actually wrote. I don't like the mystery that repeated square brackets bring to a text.
While we're on the subject, you can also see what a hash Keith makes of writing, or reporting, a sentence. What a weird, choppy mess. There was nothing preventing her from just pasting in that quote as is. It's clear, concise writing, but she broke it up into two pieces full of square brackets and left out the first half. I had to go look up the rest myself, which was not easy. It makes me wonder what else she left out.
A fascinating topic, but a frustrating book. Not recommended, even as a reference.
Contains: infanticide; chattel slavery; racism; racial violence; descriptions of warfare; references to sexual assault, including of underaged girls.
There's no separate bibliography. Sources are cited in end notes and indicated with superscript numbers in the text, but not always. There are many quotes that are unattributed in the text and refer to no specific end note, forcing you to guess which adjacent note it's attached to and which source—of often multiple sources—it's from. More than a few citations were "as quoted in" another modern secondary source. I'm no historian, but that seems like the sort of thing you'd want to avoid. The index is insufficient and I know this because I was constantly digging around in there trying to find earlier references to things that were just dropped into the text with no explanation like I was already intimately familiar with them, which I wasn't because this book is not written in a way that teaches, informs, and reminds. Instead it acts like you already know most of this stuff. Its inattention to detail was a constant frustration. I often didn't know what year events were taking place. The smaller details—like how many men John Brown brought with him for his raid on Harpers Ferry—are also often omitted. Also larger details like what exactly his plan was. It's also inconsistent in identifying people as white or black.
And then let's talk about [Negro]. The n-word doesn't appear in this book, and I understand why an author might want to write around that. It's an upsetting word, but it's also part of our history, and Keith is sanitizing that history by replacing the n-word—at least, I have to assume this is what she's doing because at no point is it acknowledged in the text—with "[Negro]" in quoted material. This is imprecise, verges on authorial intrusion, and has the effect of masking racism and changing history.
In a letter to Radical Republican Senator Charles Sumner, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts wrote, according to Keith, that with the discrepancy in pay between white and black soldiers, "that 'the government means to disgrace and demean' by denying equal pay 'so that [the black soldier] may always be in his own eyes, and the eyes of all men "only a [Negro]."'"
Contrast that with Andrew's actual words, in full: "For fear the uniform may dignify the enfranchised slave, or make the black man seem like a free citizen, the government means to disgrace and degrade him, so that he may always be in his own eyes, and in the eyes of all men, ‘only a nigger.'"
Whether Andrew, a white abolitionist, was quoting someone specific or just wanted the power of the word without implicating himself in its use, I don't know, but his full statement is more layered than Keith's truncated version and has the benefit of being what Andrew actually wrote. I don't like the mystery that repeated square brackets bring to a text.
While we're on the subject, you can also see what a hash Keith makes of writing, or reporting, a sentence. What a weird, choppy mess. There was nothing preventing her from just pasting in that quote as is. It's clear, concise writing, but she broke it up into two pieces full of square brackets and left out the first half. I had to go look up the rest myself, which was not easy. It makes me wonder what else she left out.
A fascinating topic, but a frustrating book. Not recommended, even as a reference.
Contains: infanticide; chattel slavery; racism; racial violence; descriptions of warfare; references to sexual assault, including of underaged girls.
October 21, 2020
When it Was Grand by LeeAnna Keith predates the origins of the Republican Party by discussing Kansas -Nebraska the early anti-slavery movement and politics and John Brown.
The book continues to evolve with the development of the Republican Party, the Dred Scott decision and attempts to undermine it in the North. The evolution of the Republican Party is composed of old Whigs, conservative anti-slavery Democrats, and other anti slavery conservative elements,formed by some including Salmon Chase, William Seward, and Abraham Lincoln.
The book continues to discuss the war years, Radical Republicans and the political development of the anti-slavery movement both politically and socially.
An interesting book on an undeveloped aspects of the war years and both moderate and radical Republicans. I would recommend the brief book on a focused subject.
The book continues to evolve with the development of the Republican Party, the Dred Scott decision and attempts to undermine it in the North. The evolution of the Republican Party is composed of old Whigs, conservative anti-slavery Democrats, and other anti slavery conservative elements,formed by some including Salmon Chase, William Seward, and Abraham Lincoln.
The book continues to discuss the war years, Radical Republicans and the political development of the anti-slavery movement both politically and socially.
An interesting book on an undeveloped aspects of the war years and both moderate and radical Republicans. I would recommend the brief book on a focused subject.
April 11, 2020
Certain periods of history I am always revisiting. The War of Rebellion is one of those periods
It hurts my heart that everytime I revisit the Radical Republicans that it reinforces my thesis that they were unsuccessful in the Reconstruction to follow the civil war but here they did have success during the civil war.
It hurts my heart that everytime I revisit the Radical Republicans that it reinforces my thesis that they were unsuccessful in the Reconstruction to follow the civil war but here they did have success during the civil war.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews