1861: The Civil War Awakening

By: Adam Goodheart

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began.

1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents' faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal. It set Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness and millions of slaves on the road to freedom.

The book introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes - among them an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer's wife, an idealistic band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, a community of Virginia slaves, and a young college professor who would one day become president. Adam Goodheart takes us from the corridors of the White House to the slums of Manhattan, from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the deserts of Nevada, from Boston Common to Alcatraz Island, vividly evoking the Union at this moment of ultimate crisis and decision.

©2011 Adam Goodheart (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Winner, History, 2012

“With boundless verve, Adam Goodheart has sketched an uncommonly rich tableau of America on the cusp of the Civil War. The research is impeccable, the cast of little-known characters we are introduced to is thoroughly fascinating, the book is utterly thought-provoking, and the story is luminescent. What a triumph.” (Jay Winik, author of New York Times best-sellers April 1865 and The Great Upheaval)

"Engrossing .... Tension is palpable on every page .... Goodheart's book is an impressive accomplishment, a delightful read, and a valuable contribution that will entertain and challenge." ( Harvard Magazine)

"Exhilarating ... inspiring ... irresistible ... 1861 creates the uncanny illusion that the reader has stepped into a time machine." ( New York Times Book Review, cover review)

"In his marvelous book... Goodheart brings us into 19th-century America, as ambiguous, ambitious and fractured as the times we live in now, and he brings to pulsing life the hearts and minds of its American citizens." ( Huffington Post)

“Jonathan Davis's narration sets the scene with hints of foreboding, creating a feeling of tension about the impending war. He draws listeners into stories of people like recaptured slave Lucy Bagby and future president James Garfield….Goodheart's meticulous research and lively writing will appeal to any history buff.” ( AudioFile)

"Beautifully written and thoroughly original--quite unlike any other Civil War book out there." ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

Wide Awake

I don't know what to praise more- the info in this book, the narration, or the writing. After a while, you begin to ask how many Civil War books can a nation produce? What new can be said and done? This book is unique in that it focuses more on the attitudes and influences on the time leading up to the full-blown war. Yes, I knew what a Wide Awake was before reading this book, but this author succeeded in truly making me 'feel' what a seventeen year old kid in New England must have felt as he saw his friends donning capes and deciding to stand against disunion. This book has a sort of magic to it that other civil war books lack. I have enjoyed very much Battle Cry of Freedom, and books like it that lay out the battles and the results of each, but this book truly enriched my understanding of what someone like me (And very likely these people were my ancestors) felt as he/she had to choose whether to lay down their life to make way for a truly free America.

Very enlightening

As as Australian, most of what I know of the Civil War in America has been gained from movies such as Gone With The Wind and tv series like North and South. It was very interesting to hear the facts that led to the war between the states and to learn more about Abraham Lincoln. I really enjoyed this book.

Another bitter Southerner

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Try not to let the authorers personal preferance show thru so much.

Would you ever listen to anything by Adam Goodheart again?

Maybe, but probably not.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

no the book itself was not all that great.

Did 1861: The Civil War Awakening inspire you to do anything?

Yes, try to find an author in favor of the north wining.

Any additional comments?

This book is another up set southerner and is trying to paint the north in a very bad light.

Awesome History

This is without doubt the best Civil War History I've read in a long time.

Such a wonderful tapestry of different stories, filled with suspense because we know what's coming.

Relevant To A Modern Reader

The thread of stories woven together to form a finished tapestry more recognizable to a modern reader. The performer reading the book also did a good job of giving a unique voice to each person speaking throughout the text. One of my favorites thus far.

New Civil War information for me!

First: I am not a history fan. I only recalled a few of the Civil War facts from my mandatory high school US History class. From this book I learned new pieces of the history, put my previous knowledge in context, and learned a good bit about some of the major players.

After trying to listen to this completely before moving on to my favorite mysteries and thrillers, I found that listening to one part at a time and taking a break (listening to a different book) worked better for me. It prevented history overload, gave me time to put the new information into my existing framework, and left me with a sense of accomplishment. I even moved on to revisit some past reading and did some new research on key players.

This was definitely a worthwhile read. The information is presented in chronological order, the political atmosphere is investigated from several viewpoints, the cast of key players is expanded beyond the "history book" version, and the multiple attempts to avoid war are presented. As the book title states, this only covers the 1861 prelude to the war. The author accomplishes his goal and doesn't blather on interminably about the future.

Jonathan Davis does an admirable job of narrating material that is "dry" by nature. There is no place for emotional components or dramatizations in this type of book.

Classic History of the First Year of the Civil War

"This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend."
-- Abraham Lincoln's First Message to Congress, at the Special Session. July 4, 1861.

One of the best histories I've read during the last couple years. I went in knowing, kinda, what I was getting into. '1861' was published in 2011 150 years after the start of the Civil War. Obviously, it was going to be about the start of the Civil War, duh. But the book is more than that. It is chapter, by chapter, a series of vignettes that try to capture the complexity and details of our nation at then start of the Civil War, during that fateful year.

One chapter focuses on Major Robert Anderson and the officers and men who held Ft Sumter. Another chapter explores the 1861 from the perspective of James Garfield, an Ohio professor and preacher, later General and President, Another chapter follows Elmer Ellsworth, a charismatic Ohio youth who becomes a Colonel in charge of a flashy group of recruits modeled on the French Zouaves. Another beautifully written chapter relates the experiences of Jessie Fremont and the young reverend Thomas Starr King, who passionate Californian's who were largely responsible for keeping California in the Union.

The book is filled with these stories, amazing all, that weave together like a giant flag or tapestry of our history. It isn't a book of battles as much as it is a book of people and one year. This is a book that couple be optioned seven or eight times. I can imagine several of these single chapters being made into amazing movies, but still, it seems impossible that any movie, or other art form could capture the elements found within this book as artistically and beautifully as Adam Goodhearted did with this masterful classic.

Very, Very Good !

1861: Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart and read by Jonathon Davis.

The quality of the recording and narration is quite good.
The idea to explore and present just one year during the Civil War (and 1861 in particular) is splendid because it enables the author to give the reader an encompassing view of the people, places and times that actually helps the reader focus well enough to understand the era, not merely witness it piecemeal.
By 1861, the politicians and their corps of junkyard dogs (The Press) – both North and South - had so misinformed and inflamed and frustrated the people of the young United States that Civil War was virtually inevitable. The list of various reasons why so many ordinary, nice people decided to go fight a war against their own countrymen was as long as it was wrong. Worse yet, most of the people who would do the fighting (and suffering and dying) were almost completely unaware of the price they would be paying.
The nice, everyday Northern shopkeepers and farmers thought they were going to put on a “chick-magnet” uniform, ride the train to Richmond, kick Jeff Davis in the fanny at which time the South would surrender, and they would be back for Spring planting. Newly-minted “soldiers” of the South – all baptized by Sir Walter Scott’s wine of Chivalry were all going fly off on their Thoroughbreds to win a jousting tournament that would shut all the Yankees up once and for all, and then they would be back in a couple weeks to sip mint juleps on the verandas they didn’t have and bask in the adoration of the Damsels Fair they didn’t know.
Bad news, Guys. Not!
None of them realized they were going to sleep in cold, muddy fields and under the branches of a bug-infested woods and shoot or stab other naïve, lied-to farmers and shopkeepers to death. None stopped to think what it would feel like to breathe gunsmoke all day and then spend the Spring evenings gathering and burying the torn bodies of their friends and neighbors. And then spend all night listening to the wails of the wounded.
They didn’t know a full third of them would die from common illnesses alone, like dysentery and measles, scurvy and flu.

Goodheart gives the reader real 1861 people, both great and small, without all the blarney and revisionist propaganda of the pseudo-education in our schools. In so doing, he puts the reader right in the middle of “United States 1861: RealTime”. Goodheart leads you into the muddy streets of the uncompleted Capitol and the squalor of slave markets and the brutish façade of Congress and the naïve parlors and town meetings - both North and South, and the troubled salons of all of Europe as they watched the Great Experiment in the Rights of Man. You will see and here Everybody, not just the newspapers and political pundits. You will meet the Zouaves and the Wide-Awakes and farmers and women and teachers that could have been your relatives and neighbors. You will see at street level the flaws and hypocrisies of the religion of the day, of the Abolitionists, of the Copperheads, of the Press et al, and likely will see a much clearer and interesting view of Abe Lincoln than the political distortions we’ve all grown up with. You will also be entertained, and amazed, at what you would have been doing every day in 1861 to make up for not having so many of the things you take for granted today.
Of many, many books I’ve read and audiobooks I’ve listened to on the Civil war era, 1861: Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart is definitely one of the most enlightening and entertaining.

Fabulous!

This is the book I've been waiting a lifetime for. A book on the origins of the Civil War that doesn't devolve into a painstaking description of battlefields and the multiple mistakes of generals like McClellan and even Grant. I've learned about seismic movements like the "Wide awakes," the Zouave Americans, the Contrabands, and others; and people like Jesse Benton Fremont, Thomas Starr King, Charles King, Mallory, Nathaniel Lyon, Mary Chestnut, and Shepherd Mallory; and new insights into John Garfield, Abner Doubleday, Major Anderson (Fort Sumter), John Fremont, John Tyler, and General Butler.

I couldn't recommend this more to any others who are interested in the Civil War as anything other than a succession of battlefields.

An Entertaining Listen

Adam Goodheart's book was great entertainment. Not being from the US I knew little about the events leading to and the cause of the conflict. I was still a bit mistified afterwards as to what all the details given meant and am now complimenting it with books by Foote and Catton. It is now beging to make much more sense, though it is biased towards an understanding of the Union perspective rather than both sides.

I will revisit this gem in a few weeks and no doubt will then be able to rate this as five stars.