1858: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and the War They Failed to See

By Bruce Chadwick
368 pp. Sourcebooks, Inc., 2008 $24.95

Reviewed by Nancy Webber

Although the title suggests a reader might learn why Lincoln, Davis, Lee and Grant failed to understand the impact of events leading up to the Civil War, that’s not quite what you’ll find in 1858.

Instead, you’ll find a loosely connected narrative of seven events that occurred in 1858, which according to the author illustrate how the United States “reluctantly, and perhaps inevitably, stumbled toward that moment in April 1861 when the guns in Charleston opened up on Ft. Sumter.”

In 1858 Bruce Chadwick, former journalist and now professor of history at Rutgers University, identifies turning points that drove a nation to civil war, such as Colonel Robert E. Lee’s retirement from the army and the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

But Chadwick’s approach ignores the structural causes that existed and developed before the Civil War began and he fails to analyze or interpret the meaning of these seven events in relationship to the larger themes of the era.

The narrative also explores personal issues, such as Jefferson Davis’ health, that preoccupied the characters during the year 1858. Chadwick's sometimes melodramatic style enlivens his descriptions of these issues, but he doesn’t describe how the incidents are pivotal to each characters’ involvement in the war.

The thread that holds these stories together is President James Buchanan. Short passages describing the failed actions and policies of Buchanan’s administration appear throughout the book. This is the one place Chadwick succeeds in describing a character who failed to see the signs of war.

But with the others, he doesn’t make a strong case. Perhaps the men who became the civilian and military leaders of a divided nation failed to perceive the importance of these events. Perhaps these events themselves aren’t as significant as Chadwick believes. 

Or maybe Lincoln, Davis, Lee and Grant simply knew that no one event, but the institution of slavery itself, would eventually lead to war.