The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

The boat reached its wharf at twelve forty-five a.m., Friday, April 12, 1861, destined to be the single-most consequential day in American history.

The process of disunion took eight minutes.

Stephens warned, “When men come under the influence of fanaticism, there is no telling where their impulses or passions may drive them.”

“Never,” he wrote, “did a people enter a war so utterly destitute of any reason for waging it.”

“This is one of those moments when the word impossible must be ignored.”