Wide Awake

The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War

By: Jon Grinspan

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

A propulsive account of our history’s most surprising, most consequential political club: the Wide Awake anti-slavery youth movement that marched America from the 1860 election to civil war.

At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young White and Black men, and a number of women, were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades of their own. These Wide Awakes--mostly working-class Americans in their twenties--became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history. To some, it demonstrated the power of a rising majority to push back against slavery. To others, it looked like a paramilitary force training to invade the South. Within a year, the nation would be at war with itself, and many on both sides would point to the Wide Awakes as the mechanism that got them there.

In this gripping narrative, Smithsonian historian Jon Grinspan examines how exactly our nation crossed the threshold from a political campaign into a war. Perfect for listeners of Lincoln on the Verge and The Field of Blood, Wide Awake bears witness to the power of protest, the fight for majority rule, and the defense of free speech. At its core, Wide Awake illuminates a question American democracy keeps posing, about the precarious relationship between violent rhetoric and violent actions.

©2024 Jon Grinspan (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Interesting account

This is a deeply-researched book about the Wide-Awakes, who were so prominent in the year 1860. I've read of them numerous times in other books about that year's election, about Lincoln, and about the lead up to the Civil War, but until this book there hasn't been anything in depth about them. But they were famous and the topic of nationwide conversation during that election year. This shows the good and some bad about a group of mostly working class young progressive men who helped get Lincoln elected while horrifying Southerners. I learned a lot, including that in 1860, almost nobody -- even ardent abolitionists --believed slavery would be eradicated in their lifetimes. That the Wide-Awakes were even a little responsible for that belief being wrong gives them an honorable place in history. Well-narrated by Sean Pratt.