{"product_id":"every-drop-of-blood-the-momentous-second-inauguration-of-abraham-lincoln-9780802148759","title":"Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA brilliantly conceived and vividly drawn story--Washington, D.C. on the eve of Abraham Lincoln's historic second inaugural address as the lens through which to understand all the complexities of the Civil War\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBy March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans and left intractable wounds on the nation. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington's Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war's unimaginable horrors--every drop of blood spilled--might well have been God's just verdict on the national sin of slavery. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEdward Achorn reveals the nation's capital on that momentous day--with its mud, sewage, and saloons, its prostitutes, spies, reporters, social-climbing spouses and power-hungry politicians--as a microcosm of all the opposing forces that had driven the country apart. A host of characters, unknown and famous, had converged on Washington--from grievously wounded Union colonel Selden Connor in a Washington hospital and the embarrassingly drunk new vice president, Andrew Johnson, to poet-journalist Walt Whitman; from soldiers' advocate Clara Barton and African American leader and Lincoln critic-turned-admirer Frederick Douglass (who called the speech \"a sacred effort\") to conflicted actor John Wilkes Booth--all swirling around the complex figure of Lincoln.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn indelible scenes, Achorn vividly captures the frenzy in the nation's capital at this crucial moment in America's history and the tension-filled hope and despair afflicting the country as a whole, soon to be heightened by Lincoln's assassination. His story offers new understanding of our great national crisis and echoes down the decades to resonate in our own time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdward Achorn\u003c\/b\u003e, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Commentary and winner of the Yankee Quill Award, is the author of two acclaimed books about nineteenth-century baseball and American culture, \u003ci\u003eFifty-nine in '84\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Summer of Beer and Whiskey\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in an 1840s farmhouse in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Grove Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50635294474514,"sku":"9780802148759","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_07f224a2-f3f1-40e4-a6d3-3a3d96c6fad7.jpg?v=1732839726","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/every-drop-of-blood-the-momentous-second-inauguration-of-abraham-lincoln-9780802148759","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}