About this item
The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War--a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict.This brilliantly argued new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the warBuilding a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham--Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation's financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. Brimming with drama and outsized characters, Congress at War is also one of the most original books about the Civil War to appear in years and will change the way we understand the conflict.
About the Author
FERGUS M. BORDEWICH is the author of seven non-fiction books: The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (Simon & Schuster, 2016) ; America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union (Simon & Schuster, 2012) ; Washington: The Making of the American Capital (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2008) ; Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2005) ; My Mother's Ghost, a memoir (Doubleday, 2001) ; Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century (Doubleday, 1996) ; and Cathay: A Journey in Search of Old China (Prentice Hall Press, 1991) . In his newest book, The First Congress, Bordewich tells the story of the most momentous -- and most productive -- Congress in American history. When the members of the First Congress met in New York, in 1789, the new nation was still fragile, riven by sectional differences, hobbled by competing currencies, crushed by debt, and stitched together only tentatively by the Constitution. The Constitution provided a set of principles but offered few instructions about how the system should operate, leaving it to Congress and the president to create the machinery of government. A James Madison put it, "We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us." Had Congress failed in its work, the United States as we know it might not exist. His previous book, America's Great Debate, tells an epic story of the nation's westward expansion, slavery and the Compromise of 1850, centering on the dramatic congressional debate of 1849-1850 - the longest in American history - when a gallery of extraordinary men including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas, Jefferson Davis, William H. Seward, and others, fought to shape, and in the case of some to undermine, the future course of the Union. He has also published an illustrated children's book, Peach Blossom Spring (Simon & Schuster, 1994) , and wrote the script for a PBS documentary about Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson's University. He also edited an illustrated book of eyewitness accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Children of the Dragon (Macmillan, 1990) . He is a frequent book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He lives in San Francisco, California with his wife Jean. In 2013, Bordewich was awarded the Los Angeles Book Prize for America's Great Debate, which the Times named the best work of history published in 2012. Bound for Canaan was selected as one of the American Booksellers Association's "ten best nonfiction books" in 2005; as the Great Lakes Booksellers' Association's "best non-fiction book" of 2005; as one of the Austin Public Library's Best Non-Fiction books of 2005; and as one of the New York Public Library's
