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

by Erik Larson

Hammond’s newly acquired empire included 10,800 acres of land, most of it undeveloped, centered initially on a plantation called Silver Bluff that was said to be named for the gleam emitted when the sun struck deposits of mica in the underlying terrain. His dominion also included one hundred and thirty hogs, ninety-five cattle, twenty-five mules, and twenty sheep, with all but the mules roaming free on the land. The plantation had a sawmill, gristmill, and cotton gin, and a small village of structures that housed the plantation’s greatest asset: its enslaved laborers. In all he now owned one hundred forty-seven, of whom seventy-three were men, seventy-four women. Sixty-four were between the ages of fifteen and forty-five, considered the ideal range. On paper, at least, the age and sex composition promised both a productive workforce and one capable of achieving that desideratum of planters, “natural increase,” meaning a population likely to bear children. Enslaved Blacks were