First published 1994
The spring of 1865 brings Abraham Lincoln to the threshold of victory after four years of devastating war. While most Americans believe the conflict ends with Lee's surrender at Appomattox, three more months of struggle await the fractured nation. Grant pursues the remnants of Confederate resistance as Sherman closes his grip on Johnston's forces in North Carolina. Wilson sweeps through Alabama and Georgia in a final campaign of destruction. Confederate leaders confront the collapse of everything they fought to preserve. The steamboat Sultana explodes and sinks in America's worst maritime disaster. A massive munitions blast levels much of Mobile. An assassin's bullet fells Lincoln just as peace seems within reach. Jefferson Davis flees as manhunters close in. Trudeau follows both Northern and Southern perspectives through these final months of chaos and transformation, when individual acts of courage and honor play out against the backdrop of a society struggling to emerge from war and move toward an uncertain peace.
Genres: american-civil-war, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: historical-events, multiple-perspectives
Setting: Appomattox, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mobile
Period: 1865
Hardcover · Little Brown & Co