This fast-paced popular history of the frantic days between the attack on Fort Sumter and the Battle of Bull Run completes Detzer's "trilogy on the first hundred days of the Civil War." The earlier titles—Allegiance
and Donnybrook
—were critical and commercial successes, and the latest volume should also score with critics and readers. Detzer, professor emeritus of history at Connecticut State University, combines yeoman research—in official histories of the war, contemporary newspapers, journals, diaries and personal correspondence—and gritty prose. In the early days of the conflict, the nation's capital, geographically wedged between two states (Virginia and Maryland) considering secession, was ground zero for the aspirations and fears of a divided nation. If Washington had fallen to the Confederates in those turbulent days of "incredible noise"—hence the title—Detzer suggests that the war would have been lost. At the center of the cauldron, President Lincoln struggled to get his bearings: cautious, anxious and uncertain in the beginning, but gaining confidence with time. Despite a tendency to hype potential dangers, Detzer has written an engaging and comprehensive account of the early days of the Civil War that should have wide appeal. (May)
