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

A sweeping history of the 1840s that captures America's enormous sense of possibility and shows how the extraordinary expansion of territories forced the nation to come to grips with the deep rift that would bring war just a decade later.