April 1865: The Month That Saved America

The New York Times bestselling chronicle of the Civil War's final days that will forever change the way we see the war's end and the nation's new beginning. It was a month that could have unravelled the American nation. Instead, it saved it. In April 1865, Jay Winik masterfully breathes new life into the end of a war and the events we only thought we knew. This gripping, panoramic narrative takes readers on a breathless ride through these tumultuous thirty days, showing that the nation's future rested on a few crucial decisions and twists of fate. Here is Richmond's dramatic fall, Lee's harrowing retreat, and the intense debate in Confederate circles over unleashing guerrilla warfare. Here, too, is the rebel surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln's assassination five days later, and the ensuing fears of chaos and a coup, the shaky transfer of presidential power, and finally the start of national reconciliation. Outsized characters stalk through sweeping events in Winik's brilliant narrative, transforming a seeming epilogue to a great war into a central-and saving-moment in American history, firmly placing April 1865 in the same pantheon as 1492 and 1776.

Jay Winik, writer and historian, has had a distinguished government career and is now a senior scholar at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal