The general historical argument that April 1865 is one of the most important months in US history is hard to argue with, and the book succeeds in establishing a handful of major events/series of events as evidence. Grant’s final pursuit, defeat, and submission of Lee’s army is the primary one. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is second. The South’s (and mostly Lee’s) decision to ultimately cease the war is the next. Jonhston’s surrender to Sherman is the last. They go more or less in this order, with Lincoln dying just a few days after Appomattox Courthouse. There’s even an implication in this book (though I might be inferring too much here) that Lincoln’s death acted as a kind of final blood sacrifice that both felt too far and too drastic, and led to a softening of hearts. Causing Lee to want to avoid guerilla warfare, and for Sherman to want to avoid harsh penalties for Johnston, and the rest of the South. I think Sherman might have simply been being more strategic, knowing he could secure a surrender with generous terms. Why Andrew Johnson felt compelled by these? Who knows.
What really really bothers me about this book dramatically it failed in formulating its thesis. The month that saved America? For whom? Well obviously for Americans. Well, wait, for white Americans. This book doesn’t quite fall into Lost Cause bullshit, but it does play pretty close to it. By making sure to add complicating legacies to the figures in the North, and softening portrayals to those in the South it does very much want to play with the idea that the Civil War was a contest among equals. Now if that was simply a military analysis, sure go for it, that’s what discussions of Civil War battle strategies have always been. Southern military leadership, will, and home turf versus Northern technology, resources, and manpower. Once Grant and Sherman figured out how to win, it was only a matter of time, or more so will. It was always going to be a slog and a war of attrition, and the South’s only hope were always only going to involve foreign intervention (pretty much always an impossibility) or running out the clock, much more likely. They could never “win”. But in this book, it’s not just a war among military equals, but at times a war among equal causes and evidence. Winik twice mentions that different parts of the country played around at rebellion, but to suggest that anything matched the Civil War feel silly, and even suggesting a pattern feels forced.
The real failure of this book is absolute cowardice to deal with the morality of slavery. Any talk about “time and place” doesn’t enter into questions of slavery except to talk about the will of government and people. Slavery was wrong then and it’s wrong now. We know it was wrong because they worked really hard to keep it even though it had so many opponents. Primarily anti-slavery? Slaves! Turns out slaves hating being enslaved. But in this book, there’s still plenty of mentioning of slaves who individually chose to stay close to where they were enslaved or who fought alongside the South. (Annette Gordon-Reed in On Juneteenth reminds of a slave who died in the Alamo, who was often praised for their loyalty and dedication. Gordon-Reed reminds us that they didn’t choose to be there, and of course, slavery is not a condition under which consent can happen). This book does not have the skill or the ability to make a complex understanding of the institution of slavery understood, and where it tries, it’s muddled at best, pandering and offensive at worst.