Two Roads to Sumter

Book excerpt: This is the tragic story of the North and South as they begin their long, heartbreaking march to Civil War. Using the early lives and careers of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as theme and framework, these brilliant historians recreate this complex period of American history. The growth and development of both Lincoln and Davis is given, in parallel form, showing the moral and intellectual forces that shaped the two figures that became the war leaders in the next decade. The clash of opinions led to the clash of armies and in this incisive, psychological portrait of two idealists, America's story, in the decades before the Civil War, is told in engaging and eloquent prose. Book jacket.