RISE TO GREATNESS: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year

On New Year’s Day 1862, nine months after the firing on Fort Sumter, few thought President Lincoln had matters under control. Von Drehle (Triangle: The Fire That Changed America), a Time magazine editor-at-large, points out that the Confederate Army was camped near Washington, D.C. The growing Union Army, under charismatic but unwarlike General McClellan, was refusing to march. The future looked brighter in February when General Grant captured forts Henry and Donelson out west and in April when Union forces captured New Orleans. It looked even better when McClellan advanced near Yorktown, Va., but he dawdled and retreated in the face of energetic attacks. After Confederate forces moved north in September, McClellan’s deliberation produced a draw at bloody Antietam. Fed up, Lincoln dismissed McClellan. His replacement, Ambrose Burnside, led the army to disaster at Fredericksburg, so 1862 ended badly, but Lincoln had learned painful lessons, and 1863 produced victories for the North. This is a conventional popular history with familiar figures, events, anecdotes, and no revisionist opinions, but Von Drehle has chosen a critical year (“the most eventful year in American history” and the year Lincoln “rose to greatness”), done his homework, and written a spirited account. 8 pages of b&w photos, b&w illus., maps. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Dec.)