1863: The Rebirth of a Nation - Hardcover

Stevens, Joseph E.

4.18

28 ratings by Goodreads

9780553103144: 1863: The Rebirth of a Nation

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553103148 ISBN 13: 9780553103144

Publisher: Bantam, 1999

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American history has never seen a more tumultuous or more significant year than 1863. During this crucial time the tide of the Civil War turned inexorably from the Confederacy to the Union, with momentous consequences that are still being felt today. It was a year of upheaval unparalleled in our national experience: twelve months of searing brutality and ennobling sacrifice, 365 stirring, dramatic days that changed our country forever.

Integrating the events of this epochal year into a panoramic narrative, Joseph E. Stevens presents a grand portrait of the Union and Confederacy at war. He captures two nations struggling to define the American experiment and create a new understanding of freedom on the bloody battlefields of Stones River, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga. He also traces the astonishing political, economic, and social transformations that marked 1863 as a watershed.

1863 features a remarkable cast of characters: larger-than-life leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis; charismatic and controversial military commanders like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, Joseph Hooker, Stonewall Jackson, George Armstrong Custer, and Nathan Bedford Forrest; avaricious young capitalists like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan; war-haunted writers like Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, and Walt Whitman; war-inspired painters like Winslow Homer and Conrad Wise Chapman.

Here, too, is a host of less well known but no less fascinating personalities: soldiers and civilians, slaves and slave owners, farmers and city dwellers, politicians and profiteers, artistocrats and refugees. Their stories--humorous and harrowing, inspiring and appalling--make 1863 not just a sweeping re-creation of events but a gripping human tale as well.

1863 is popular history at its best--vivid, vibrant, and immensely readable. Written with dramatic intensity and impassioned humanity, it is a thrilling account of the pivotal year of the war that remains the central historical event in the life of our nation.

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Review:

For the United States, embroiled in a civil war against the Confederacy, 1863 began with Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation and ended with the completion of the Capitol's dome. In between were crucial battles at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. Despite the uninspired title, 1863 is a well-written chronicle, a biography of 12 months that one North Carolina diarist described as "a year of calamity and distress." Although this is largely a military history, author Joseph E. Stevens populates his pages with characters from all walks of life. He conveys a powerful sense of the time, and his rich, anecdote-laden prose is absorbing. Several dozen pictures and maps enrich the text, allowing readers to examine photographs of the book's main figures and follow the course of the battles.

The story is also full of dramatic tension, as the Union struggles to put down the Confederate rebellion; the North wins important contests, and while they never seem to be able to deliver the fatal blow, there is a sense of inevitability. By December, it is hard to disagree with the assessment of New Yorker John Templeton Strong: "[1863] has proved a far better year for the country than it promised at its birth." War would rage throughout the following year and into 1865, as well--leaving us reason to hope Stevens will write a couple of sequels. --John J. Miller

From the Back Cover:

Advance praise for 1863: The Rebirth of a Nation:

"The year 1863 was the hinge of fate not only for the outcome of the Civil War, but indeed for the destiny of America. Starting in the gloom of defeat forth Union cause and prospect of victory of the Confederacy, this Year of Jubilee for slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation was punctuated by historic Northern victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, and ended in and ended in an apparent reversal of fortunes for North and South. Joseph Stevens's vigorous prose captures the drama and significance of this year of decision in a stunning and important book."
--James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom

"1863: The Rebirth of a Nation portrays the remarkable events of that pivotal year in a style that is accurate, readable and rich in human interest. I have read a good deal about the Battle of Gettysburg, but Joseph Stevens kept me riveted with his new treatment of old stories."
--John S.D. Eisenhower, author of Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott

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