Original and deeply human, this tense and surprising story, filled with indecisive bureaucrats, uninformed leaders, hotheaded politicians, and dedicated soldiers, is a clear and intimate portrait of the prolonged drama that unfolded at Fort Sumter and incited the first shot of the Civil War on April 12, 1861.
The six-month-long agony that began with Lincoln's election in November sputtered from one crisis to the next, and finally exploded as the soldiers at Sumter neared starvation. With little help from Washington, D.C., Major Robert Anderson, a soldier whose experience had taught him...

For two weeks in 1861, Washington, D.C., was locked in a state of panic. Would the newly formed Confederate States of America launch its first attack on the Union by capturing the nation s capital? Would Lincoln s Union fall before it had a chance to fight?
Wedged between Virginia and Maryland two states bordering on secession Washington was isolated; its communications lines were cut, its rail lines blocked. Newly recruited volunteers were too few and were unable to enter the city. A recently inaugurated Lincoln struggled to form a plan defense or attack?

In this final chapter of...

In April 1861, Confederate artillery blasted Fort Sumter into surrender. Within weeks, the Confederacy had established its capital at Richmond. On May 24, Lincoln ordered troops across the Potomac into Virginia, only a few miles from the Confederate military base near the hamlet of Manassas. A great battle was inevitable; whether this would end the war, as many expected, was the only question. On July 21, near a stream called Bull Run, the two forces fought from early morning until after dark in the first great battle of the Civil War. America would never be quite the same.
Donnybrook is...