The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this reexamination of a nation in tumult Los Angeles Times A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller. The Wall Street Journal on November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy shelling of Sumter a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them. At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are…