“No, sir, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King.”–James H. Hammond, quoted by Erik Larsen in The Demon of Unrest
Erik Larsen is a master storyteller and he lives up to that reputation with his latest book, The Demon of Unrest. This book tells the story of the five pivotal months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the firing on Ft. Sumter by Confederate forces, the event which started the U.S. Civil War. This is a story of egos, terrible communication, the chivalric code, and mistaken ideals. The story is told largely through the eyes of Major Robert Anderson, commander of Union forces at Ft. Sumter, a former slave owner who sympathizes with the South; Edmund Ruffin, a Virginian who has long yearned for the South to break from the North through an armed conflict; and Mary Chesnut, wife of a prominent Southern politician and planter.
This is a fascinating book that gives greater insight into how the war caught so many, particularly Northerners, off guard and the confidence the South felt when seceding–Cotton was king and no one would risk a lengthy war that would cause such economic devastation. Mary Chesnut’s husband famously declared that the amount of blood spilt in a war between the North and South would fit in lady’s thimble. It is a timely reminder that we often don’t see what is really happening all around us until it is too late–largely because we stay in our own echo chambers. Let’s hope we learn our lesson and avoid the pitfalls of the past.
Content Advisory: War violence