Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War

New York: Knopf, 2004. First Edition, First Printing. Fine Hardcover in a Fine Dust Jacket. Fine/Fine.

Freedom Rising is a fresh, intensely human account of how the Civil War transformed the nation's capital from the debating forum for a loose union of states into the seat of a forceful central government.

Signed by the Author on the title page. No Flaws or Blemishes; Gift Quality. 8vo;  9.25 inches tall; 463 pages;  with Chapter Notes, Bibliography and Index.. With Background Information:

Ernest Furgurson the author of the widely acclaimed Chancellorsville 1863, Ashes of Glory, and Not War but Murder tells the story through the men and women who brought the city to rambunctious life.

He re-creates historic figures such as William Seward, who fancied himself Abraham Lincoln's prime minister; poet Walt Whitman, who nursed the wounded; and detective Allan Pinkerton, who tracked down Southern sympathizers; and he introduces intriguing others, such as Mayor James Berret, arrested for disloyalty; architect Thomas Walter, striving to finish the Capitol dome in the middle of war; and accused Confederate spy Antonia Ford, romancing her captor, Union Major Joseph Willard, operator of the capital's premier hotel.  

Here is Mary Lincoln, mourning the death of her son Willie, seeking solace from fakers who conducted séances in the White House. And here is the president-in all his compassion, determination, and complexity inspiring the nation, wrangling with generals, pardoning deserters, and barely escaping death on the ramparts of Fort Stevens as Jubal Early's Southern army invades the outskirts of Washington and fights the Union Army within five miles of the White House.

For four years, the city was awash in drama and sometimes comedy, until the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth became the tragedy of the century.