April 1865: The Month That Saved America (P.S.)
by Jay Winik
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jay WinikEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-08-15
ISBN: 0060899689
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of April 1865: The Month That Saved America (P.S.)
Book Review: Courage and Contingency
Summary: 5 Stars
As the Civil War reached its denouement in April 1865, we tend to think that the victory of the North was already a foregone conclusion. In truth, it is clear that no one yet knew how the war would end. April 1865, by Jay Winik, tells the story of this last month of the war, and how the events that occurred would shape the destiny of the nation. It is a tale of contingency--if one event had gone differently, or one leader had made the other decision, our country might not be what it is today. In Winik's own words, "The ultimate fate of nations is often measured and swayed not by large events, but by tiny ones, small, symbolic gestures that shape men's passions...and quell or inflame lingering hostilities for years to come" (182). In order to demonstrate this, Winik first and foremost deals with the events of this final month, describing their historical background and stressing their importance. Winik also creates vivid vignettes of the men in whose hands lay the power to make or break our foundering country during those uncertain days. And finally, perhaps most importantly, Winik demonstrates that out of the ashes of war, the fragmented group of states was reborn as a nation.
Edward Ayers, in his book In the Presence of Mine Enemies also discussed contingency. But while Ayers was concerned only with the events of the Civil War, and how with small changes they could have been radically different, Winik focuses on the decisions of the great men who drive the cogwheels of history. It is on their shoulders that the monumental decisions of this last month rested, and it is with them that the fate of the nation hung in the balance.
One prominent issue that Winik discusses is whether even after the fall of Richmond and the ragged deterioration of the Confederate armies and their supply lines--would the Confederacy fight on? The Confederate fighters could have split up and taken to the hills, becoming partisans for their cause and engaging in guerilla warfare, prolonging the war indefinitely (146). Jefferson Davis himself supported this plan (299), and it was the worst fear of Lincoln and Grant (66). But it was General Robert E. Lee, with considerable strength of character, who decided against prolonging the conflict, and to the considerable dismay of his superiors, Lee stoically surrendered to Grant at Appomattox (166-169). The fate of the war was in the hands of Lee, and it was Lee who realized that while one must be strong in war, it is necessary to be equally strong in peace. Lee accepted defeat with fortitude, urging his people to become good citizens once again and avoid further bloodshed. Lee spearheaded the Confederate effort to procure peace with the same fervor as which he had prosecuted the war effort (311-316).
Winik also discusses the Northern side of the problem. How should the Union treat the defeated Confederacy? Would there be vindictive retribution, a bloodbath including public hangings of war criminals and the imposition of martial law? Winik shows that it was in the hands of the Union generals as much as it was dependent on government legislation. If Ulysses Grant gave Lee generous terms of peace upon Lee's surrender, further conflict could be avoided. And stirringly, Grant rose to the occasion. Grant, the hardened and often dispassionate veteran of battle saw Lee's surrender as having far-reaching consequences upon the future of the nation. Grant extended the olive branch to Lee, paving the road to reconciliation. As Winik writes so movingly, "Grant himself, spoke simply but clearly: the North may defeat the Confederate armies, it may strip away their guns and remove their cannons, but, if Grant was going to have anything to do with it, it would not also destroy their dignity" (182).
The meeting between Confederate general Joseph Johnston and Union general William T. Sherman took place in the same spirit of appeasement, bolstered by the events at Appomattox. Johnston amicably agreed to Sherman's generous terms, even though both men knew that they were acting against the wishes of their respective governments (318). What can explain how the enmity between all of these hardened fighters simply melted away? Perhaps these generals and their soldiers saw much farther than the politicians because they were out in the field. They had fought with each other in struggles bitter and destructive, they hated each other with a passion, but they also gained respect for one another. Not only did they understand that the war was too devastating to be continued, but they began to realize that the similarities that bound them together were greater than the differences that had split them asunder.
Abraham Lincoln saw further than perhaps any other man of the time, and this is why Winik stresses that he was the keystone that the entire conclusion of the war effort rested upon. Lincoln was probably the only man with the tenacity and conviction to stick to his principles through four hard years of unmitigated bloodshed and unrelenting criticism on all fronts. Lincoln persevered because he was the ultimate champion of the concept of union, stubborn in his belief that the states must be reunited in order to be re-forged as a nation. So on the one hand, Lincoln prosecuted the war with an iron fist, battering the South and burning their cities to the ground, and quelling dissent in the North with the suspension of habeas corpus (246-247). But by the same token, only Lincoln understood that after the cessation of hostilities, the South had to be let off easy, for real reconstruction could only be accomplished through reconciliation. The former Confederates had to be allowed to ease their way back into their own lives and rebuild their broken homesteads without feeling that they were under the control of an autocratic sovereign authority (251). Therefore, it is all the more crushing when we consider Lincoln's assassination; for the bullet that shot him dead also killed his plans for peace. His successor, Andrew Johnson, was rash and vindictive, determined to punish the South for its crime of rebellion (273). Winik asks: would it all come undone? Lincoln was dead, and a palpable feeling of dread and uncertainty hung in the air. Perhaps John Wilkes Booth was part of larger conspiracy to decapitate the Union government. Perhaps the Confederate government itself was the incendiary force behind Booth's deed (259-260). The outcome of April 1865 was far from certain, and this is what Winik is trying to show: one man or one event might have changed everything. Indeed, in the case of Lincoln it is very possible that our nation would be different today if he had presided over the difficult task of Reconstruction.
Lastly, Winik discusses a fundamental change that the Civil War brought to our country. Before the war, even before secession, the United States "were" only a collection of states bound together under the auspices of a rather weak federal government. No one was sure if secession was unconstitutional--Winik demonstrates that many had tried it, but none had succeeded (pardon the pun) before the South did so prior to the Civil War. But the outcome of the war answered the question of secession forever. The United States is a nation, not merely a collection of states (378-380). The long years of brutal conflict brought the people on both sides to the conclusion that the United States was now one unified nation, never again to be sundered by any division among its inhabitants. In the irony of all ironies, Winik shows that by the end of the war, even slavery was no longer an issue. By 1865, the Confederate legislatures had already decided to enlist former slaves in the army to bolster their thinning ranks, and as a reward their freedom would be ensured upon the conclusion of their duties (51-62). With the slaves free on both sides, what was the Confederacy still fighting for? Winik says, "In the end, what the Confederacy cherished most was its independence...as April 1865 approached, the two sides...were closer on the issue of slavery than perhaps they had ever been since the founding of the republic, and yet it no longer mattered" (62). But when the healing process finally began, it was implicitly understood that slavery was dead, and that the country could begin a more vibrant existence as a nation.
April 1865 is not only well-researched and informative, but Winik's narrative is unusually eloquent and poetic. Most surprising for a historical work is that it is also a gripping tale, the suspense being so palpable that I was actually on the edge of my seat. Additionally, it discusses issues of the Civil War that are often not comprehensively dealt with in other books. Furthermore, not only is April 1865 a fine example of historical analysis, but it is also a biographical work of the highest standard. With the touch of a master storyteller, Winik expertly portrays the complex, often conflicted, and yet utterly brilliant lives of the most important characters of the drama; from Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis to Nathaniel Bedford Forrest and John Wilkes Booth. Winik's work is truly a masterpiece, one that will change our perceptions of the final days of the Civil War and help us to better appreciate even the seemingly small actions of the larger-than-life actors who stepped forward in a time of need and shouldered the burden of destiny.
Summary of April 1865: The Month That Saved America (P.S.)
One month in 1865 witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond, a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrilla warfare, Lee's harrowing retreat, and then, Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation.
In the end, April 1865 emerged as not just the tale of the war's denouement, but the story of the making of our nation.
Jay Winik offers a brilliant new look at the Civil War's final days that will forever change the way we see the war's end and the nation's new beginning. Uniquely set within the larger sweep of history and filled with rich profiles of outsize figures, fresh iconoclastic scholarship, and a gripping narrative, this is a masterful account of the thirty most pivotal days in the life of the United States.
There are a few books that belong on the shelf of every Civil War buff: James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, one of the better Abraham Lincoln biographies, something on Robert E. Lee, perhaps Shelby Foote's massive trilogy The Civil War. Add Jay Winik's wonderful April 1865 to the list. This is one of those rare, shining books that takes a new look at an old subject and changes the way we think about it. Winik shows that there was nothing inevitable about the end of the Civil War, from the fall of Richmond to the surrender at Appomattox to the murder of Lincoln. It all happened so quickly, in what "proved to be perhaps the most moving and decisive month not simply of the Civil War, but indeed, quite likely, in the life of the United States."
Things might have been rather different, too. "What emerges from the panorama of April 1865 is that the whole of our national history could have been altered but for a few decisions, a quirk of fate, a sudden shift in luck." When Lee abandoned Richmond, for instance, his soldiers rendezvoused at a nearby town called Amelia Court House. There, the general expected to find boxcars full of food for his hungry troops. But "a mere administrative mix-up" left his army empty-handed and may have limited Lee's options in the days to come. Or what if Lee had decided not to surrender at all, but to turn his resourceful army into an outfit of guerrilla fighters who would harass federal officials? National reconciliation might have become impossible as the whole South turned into a region plagued with violence and terrorism. For the Union, "there would be no real rest, no real respite, no true amity, nor, for that matter, any real sense of victory--only an amorphous state of neither war nor peace, raging like a low-level fever." One of Lee's officers actually proposed this scenario to his commander in those final hours; America is fortunate Lee didn't choose this path.
Winik is an exceptionally good storyteller. April 1865 is full of memorable images and you-are-there writing. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for that momentous month and a sharpened understanding of why and how the Civil War was fought. Let it be said plainly: April 1865 is a magnificent work, surely the best book on the Civil War to be published in some time. --John J. Miller
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