index index index index Alot of people assume that the Civil War abruptly ended at Appomattox and that our nation simply healed itself. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jay Winik argues that April 1865 was perhaps the most crucial period of time in our history, even more so than July 1776. While the Founding Fathers may have established a set of ideals, it was the Civil War that put them to the test. As Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, "...testing whether that nation or any nation can long endure". The Civil War never fully realized those ideals. It took over 100 years for civil rights laws to be passed and the process is still incomplete. But April 1865 was the painful start of that process of rebirth which saved our country.

What is unique about the American Civil war is that the nation actually did heal itself, unlike many other civil wars which degenerated into chaos, fragmentation, and prolonged guerilla warfare. All of these things could have happened in America had it not been for a few high-minded individuals from both sides of the conflict who put their personal animosities and ambitions aside for the good of the nation as a whole. Lincoln was the foremost of these individuals, but his assassination threatened to end any reconciliation between the north and the south. It was left to others to carry out that task.

Ironically, it was the warriors, the generals, who were most instrumental in making that happen. They were the ones who took the high road while many politicians succumbed to short-sighted and petty vindictiveness. Many southerners refused to accept defeat and wanted to disband their armies and carry out a guerilla war. Jefferson Davis was the foremost of these individuals. Rather than demonize Davis as a coward, as so many historians have done, Winik portrays him as a brave but tragic man who could never compromise his beliefs.

If there is one hero in this book, it is Robert E. Lee who could easily have been swayed into continuing the rebellion as a guerilla war. Lee, not Davis, was the only man in the south who had the respect and moral credibility among southerners to prevent that from happening. The other Confederate generals followed Lee's example, including Joe Johnston and the hard-bitten Nathan Bedford Forrest.

While many politicians in the north wanted to punish and subjugate the south as a conquered territory against Lincoln's wishes, it was the union generals like Grant and Sherman who showed generosity and magnanimity to their conquered foes. In fact, Sherman, who was so brutal to the south during the war, had to endure scathing criticism from his superiors in Washington for the lenient terms of surrender which he offered Joseph Johnston.

Jay Winik takes us back to the time and events at the end of the Civil War which are taken for granted in history classes but were as important as the founding of our nation. July 1776 may have been the first birth of our nation, but April 1865 was perhaps the more crucial rebirth.What a book! Until I read this I had no idea what that month meant to the US or the world. Lee chose to surrender so peace could prevail. He did have other choices. He could have hid in the Southern Hills for years like the Taliban has done in Afghanistan, but he cared too much about the stability of his country. I personally think it was the hardest decision he had and the best decision he made, Grant and Lee handled Appomattox with the best diplomacy as was possible. Many do not realize that Appomattox was the only the end of one part of the war a fact the Winik illustrates here well as does that it was a valiant fight to the end. Did I mention it was Palm Sunday?Altogether, a fine examination of the events of a single month that would forever shape the face of America, and the impeccable judgment used by leaders of the era, both Union and Confederate, in determining America's destiny. To support his argument, Winik uses the unusual - but clever - method of comparing and contrasting the American Civil War with the civil wars of other nations. In these comparisons, it's clear that America's civil war had one of the most fortunate endings.

Winik goes on to examine the state of the nation during April 1865, and considers the possible outcomes that could have arisen during this most critical month. The possibilities are endless. The rebels could have taken to the hills, and reaped terror against the Union for years in an organized guerilla war. Then there was Lincoln's assassination. John Wilkes Booth sought, though he failed, to provoke a Confederate revival and continue the war. Winik lists other outcomes, but he notes the leaders on both sides that made the monumental decisions during April were adamant in unifying the country.

Finally, Winik should be given credit for providing a superb background of the battles, the leaders, and the other events that occurred throughout the civil war that eventually determined the events of April 1865. The reader is given a thorough introduction to Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, William Tecumsah Sherman, and John Wilkes Booth just to name a few. The book also provides a wonderful account of Lee's westward retreat from a smoldering Richmond. April 1865 could use better structure, but because of Winik's compelling narrative of the major events and leaders, this book is a worthwhile read. I would especially recommend this book to anyone who has not read much on the Civil War. April 1865 is a great starting point.
I'm the kind of person who likes the "story behind the story," and so, I truly enjoyed Jay Winik's April 1865: The Month That Saved America. Winik has produced a well-written, meticulously researched scholarly tome about this critical month in our nation's history.

Inching toward April of 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was painted into a corner without supplies, and most people assumed that they days of the Confederacy were numbered. Abraham Lincoln's great fear was that Lee would disperse his troops into the mountains, shifting the war into a guerilla war which could go on forever. Two things kept this from happening. First, Union General Grant offered to Lee very generous terms of surrender. How this develops can be seen in the amazing correspondence between Grant and Lee in the days leading up to Appomattox. The other is that at age 58, Lee felt himself too old to become a "bushwacker." After the surrender, he encouraged his soldiers to become "good citizens." "By this one momentous decision, he spared the country the divisive guerrilla warfare that surely would have followed, a vile poisonous conflict that would not only have delayed any true national reconciliation for many years to come, but in all probability would have fractured the country for decades into warring military pockets." Once Lee surrendered, the other Confederate generals did so as well (despite the protests of Jefferson Davis).

Even with the surrendering of the Confederate armies, a restored Union was not a given. Terms of reconstruction were not yet fully worked out in 1865. It was unclear as to how the former Confederate states would be governed. Also, how would former slaves be incorporated into the country? What rights would they possess? And then when Lincoln was assassinated, this generous and forgiving president was replaced by the vengeful Andrew Johnson. It truly was a miracle that the United States survived this fateful month.

What makes April 1865 even more fascinating is the in-depth historic background Winik provides as a backdrop for the events during the Civil War. He begins with Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers and their unsuccessful attempts to deal with the slave issue. He also writes of the creation of the Constitution--"did the Constitution create a Union from which no state, once having joined, could escape except by extra-constitutional acts of revolution?" He explains how the succession of presidential powers in the event of a presidential event was never contemplated by our Founding Fathers, and how our government stumbled through the days after the death of William Henry Harrison. And he gives us short course in the history of guerilla warfare. But where Winik really excels is the short but fascinating portraits he provides of the major players including Lincoln, Davis, Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Johnston. He provides careful analysis of their strengths, weaknesses and personalities. For Davis, he writes "His executive management was poor: he never really could decide whether he wanted to be president or secretary of war, and in often seeking to do both, it could be argued he did neither well." I was especially interested in the competition between Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee, and Sherman and Joe Johnston. When Lee finally surrendered to Grant, Grant suffered depression "at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause." The relationship between Sherman and Johnston was especially intriguing. "Without ever having laid eyes directly on each other, they more than knew one another, feeling the bonds of battle that ineluctably join soldiers' souls. Interestingly enough, there was also affection there--and real respect."

The story of the month of April in 1865 is usually the end of the story. I'm grateful to Mr. Winik for making this not the end, but the primary story.

Winik's account of April 1864 could serve as a textbook example of how to write narrative history. He uses the events of the month as a framework within which to draw together the great historical threads that he posits were resolved that fateful month:

--The conception of America as one nation, the transition to "the United States" as a singular, not plural noun.

--The long history of threatened secession from all geographical and political quarters of the country in its brief history, and the locus of patriotic feeling in the states and not the country up to that time. As Winik reminds us, most states had a history, a political existence, and a citizenry who had demonstrated their loyalty well before they were part of the union of states that was seen as a federation of more (Lincoln's great thought) or less (the states rights position) binding power.

--The problem of Presidential succession after the death of a President, a Constitutional gray area that Winik examines to pull out the interesting insight that Chief Justice Salmon Chase also reviewed the Constitution and the slim precedents available to him in the tense hours after Lincoln's death.

--The real risk of the dissolution of the Civil War into a shadow country's guerrilla warfare carried on by the 100,000 Confederate soldiers still under arms even after Lee's surrender. Winik uses his sources and well-written arguments to remove the reader from the perfect hindsight of settled history back to the time when some Confederate politicians (Jefferson Davis among them), journalists, and (surprisingly few) military leaders counseled this very path. He shows how the actions and words of Lincoln, Lee, Grant, and Sherman were directed toward the prevention of this never-ending nightmare, and how Joseph Johnston's willingness to ignore the order of Jefferson Davis to withdraw to Texas to continue the fight as a guerrilla leader may have been the key piece palliative to this waking dream of horror.

Winik writes novelistic narrative to frame the subject and drive the action to a crisis in April 1865, then freeze-frames the present and draws the camera back and away to the broader landscape and scope of his thesis. These flashbacks actually constitute the meat of the book, but Winik never forgets the framework, or the reader's emotional suspension at the point of crisis, so he zooms back into the freeze-frame and completes the action in a way that keeps the reader's mind and emotions fully engaged.

Next, I will read and review Winik's newest narrative The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, with larger scope and more pages. Look for my review to follow there in about two weeks.

April 1865 was a month that could have unraveled the nation. Instead, it saved it. Here Jay Winik offers a brilliant new look at the Civil War's final days that will forever change the way we see the war's end and the nation's new beginning. Uniquely set within the larger sweep of history, filled with rich profiles of outsize figures, fresh iconoclastic scholarship, and a gripping narrative, this is a masterful account of the thirty most pivotal days in the life of the United States.

It was not inevitable that the Civil War would end as it did, or that it would end at all well. Indeed, it almost didn't. Time and again, critical moments could have plunged the nation back into war or fashioned a far harsher, more violent, and volatile peace. Now, in a superbly told story, Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history as never before. This one month witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond; a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrilla warfare; Lee's harrowing retreat; and then Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later, and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation. In the end, April 1865 emerges as not just the tale of the war's denouement, but the story of the making of our nation.

Provocative, bold, exquisitely rendered, and stunningly original, April 1865 is the first major reassessment of the Civil War's close and is destined to become one of the great stories of American history.

There are a few books that belong on the shelf of every Civil War buff: James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, one of the better Abraham Lincoln biographies, something on Robert E. Lee, perhaps Shelby Foote's massive trilogy The Civil War. Add Jay Winik's wonderful April 1865 to the list. This is one of those rare, shining books that takes a new look at an old subject and changes the way we think about it. Winik shows that there was nothing inevitable about the end of the Civil War, from the fall of Richmond to the surrender at Appomattox to the murder of Lincoln. It all happened so quickly, in what "proved to be perhaps the most moving and decisive month not simply of the Civil War, but indeed, quite likely, in the life of the United States."

Things might have been rather different, too. "What emerges from the panorama of April 1865 is that the whole of our national history could have been altered but for a few decisions, a quirk of fate, a sudden shift in luck." When Lee abandoned Richmond, for instance, his soldiers rendezvoused at a nearby town called Amelia Court House. There, the general expected to find boxcars full of food for his hungry troops. But "a mere administrative mix-up" left his army empty-handed and may have limited Lee's options in the days to come. Or what if Lee had decided not to surrender at all, but to turn his resourceful army into an outfit of guerrilla fighters who would harass federal officials? National reconciliation might have become impossible as the whole South turned into a region plagued with violence and terrorism. For the Union, "there would be no real rest, no real respite, no true amity, nor, for that matter, any real sense of victory--only an amorphous state of neither war nor peace, raging like a low-level fever." One of Lee's officers actually proposed this scenario to his commander in those final hours; America is fortunate Lee didn't choose this path.

Winik is an exceptionally good storyteller. April 1865 is full of memorable images and you-are-there writing. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for that momentous month and a sharpened understanding of why and how the Civil War was fought. Let it be said plainly: April 1865 is a magnificent work, surely the best book on the Civil War to be published in some time. --John J. Miller suria review reviews analysis analyze