Search Results

A Secession Crisis Enigma

Download or Read eBook A Secession Crisis Enigma PDF written by Daniel W. Crofts and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
A Secession Crisis Enigma
Author :
Publisher : LSU Press
Total Pages : 305
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780807137390
ISBN-13 : 0807137391
Rating : 4/5 (90 Downloads)

Book Synopsis A Secession Crisis Enigma by : Daniel W. Crofts

Book excerpt: "The Diary of a Public Man," published anonymously in several installments in the North American Review in 1879, claimed to offer verbatim accounts of secret conversations with Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, and Stephen A. Douglas -- among others -- in the desperate weeks just before the start of the Civil War. Despite repeated attempts to decipher the Diary, historians never have been able to pinpoint its author or determine its authenticity. In A Secession Crisis Enigma, Daniel W. Crofts solves these longstanding mysteries. He identifies the author, unravels the intriguing story behind the Diary, and deftly establishes its contents as largely genuine. According to Crofts, the Diary was not a diary at all but a memoir, probably written shortly before it appeared in print. The mastermind who created it, New York journalist William Henry Hurlbert (1827--1895), successfully perpetrated one of the most difficult feats of historical license -- he pretended to have been a diarist who never existed. Crofts contends, however, that Hurlbert's work was far from fictional. Time after time, the Diary introduces material virtually impossible to fabricate along with previously concealed information that was corroborated only after its publication. The Diary bristles with precise details regarding the struggle to shape Lincoln's cabinet and the composition of his inaugural address. Crofts's careful analysis, accompanied by the full text of the Diary in an appendix, offers a bold new perspective on the frantic scramble to reverse southern secession while avoiding the abyss of war. Hurlbert, a long-forgotten eccentric genius, emerges vividly here. Part detective story, part biography, and part a detailed narrative of events in early 1861, A Secession Crisis Enigma presents a compelling answer to an enduring mystery and brings "The Diary of a Public Man" back into the historical lexicon.


A Secession Crisis Enigma Related Books

A Secession Crisis Enigma
Language: en
Pages: 305
Authors: Daniel W. Crofts
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-04-15 - Publisher: LSU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"The Diary of a Public Man," published anonymously in several installments in the North American Review in 1879, claimed to offer verbatim accounts of secret co
Henry Adams in the Secession Crisis
Language: en
Pages: 257
Authors: Mark J. Stegmaier
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-04-11 - Publisher: LSU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

During the Secession Winter session of Congress, twenty-two-year-old Henry Adams worked as private secretary to his father, Representative Charles Francis Adams
Secession Winter
Language: en
Pages: 130
Authors: Robert J. Cook
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-05 - Publisher: JHU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What prompted southern secession in the winter of 1860–61 and why did secession culminate in the American Civil War? Politicians and opinion leaders on both s
Seward
Language: en
Pages: 720
Authors: Walter Stahr
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-09-18 - Publisher: Simon and Schuster

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From one of our most acclaimed new biographers– the first full life of the leader of Lincoln’s “team of rivals” to appear in more than forty years. Will
Unionists in Virginia
Language: en
Pages: 241
Authors: Lawrence M. Denton
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-11-04 - Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Whether the Civil War was preventable is a debate that began shortly after Appomattox and continues today. But even earlier, in 1861, a group of Union-loyal Vir
Scroll to top