Informationen zum Autor Daniel W. Crofts, professor of history at The College of New Jersey, is the author of Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis and Old Southampton: Politics and Society in a Virginia County, 1834-1869 and editor of Cobb's Ordeal: The Diaries of a Virginia Farmer, 1842-1872. Klappentext "The Diary of a Public Man," published anonymously in several installments in the North American Review in 1879, claimed to offer verbatim accounts of secret conversations with Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, and Stephen A. Douglas -- among others -- in the desperate weeks just before the start of the Civil War. Despite repeated attempts to decipher the Diary, historians never have been able to pinpoint its author or determine its authenticity. In A Secession Crisis Enigma, Daniel W. Crofts solves these longstanding mysteries. He identifies the author, unravels the intriguing story behind the Diary, and deftly establishes its contents as largely genuine. Crofts' careful analysis, accompanied by the full text of the Diary in an appendix, offers a bold new perspective on the frantic scramble to reverse southern secession while avoiding the abyss of war.

Klappentext

"The Diary of a Public Man," published anonymously in several installments in the North American Review in 1879, claimed to offer verbatim accounts of secret conversations with Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, and Stephen A. Douglas -- among others -- in the desperate weeks just before the start of the Civil War. Despite repeated attempts to decipher the Diary, historians never have been able to pinpoint its author or determine its authenticity. In A Secession Crisis Enigma, Daniel W. Crofts solves these longstanding mysteries. He identifies the author, unravels the intriguing story behind the Diary, and deftly establishes its contents as largely genuine. Crofts' careful analysis, accompanied by the full text of the Diary in an appendix, offers a bold new perspective on the frantic scramble to reverse southern secession while avoiding the abyss of war.