Join us Thursday, June 25 for 6:30-8:00 PM, for author Scott Ellsworth’s presentation of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America Book Beat will have books available for purchase at the library or call 248.968.1190 to reserve a copy or for more information. The Southfield Library is located at 26300 Evergreen Road, Southfield, Michigan.
Told with a page-turning pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years.
Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North. Taking us behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents, Lincoln walks these pages, as do Grant and Sherman. But so do common soldiers, runaway slaves, and an unknown but intrepid female war correspondent named Lois Adams. Rarely, if ever, has a book about the Civil War featured such a rich and diverse cast of characters.
Deeply researched yet captivatingly written, Midnight on the Potomac is a new kind of book about the Civil War. In it you will read about the Confederate attempt to burn down New York City, how Lincoln almost lost the presidency, about the Rebel general who nearly captured Washington, and how thousands of enslaved African Americans freed themselves—and helped secure their nation’s survival. In an age of deep political division such as our own, Scott Ellsworth’s book is an eloquent and gripping testament to the courage, grit, and greatness of the American people.
“Midnight on the Potomac is a powerful achievement by Scott Ellsworth, blending meticulousresearch with vivid storytelling. Capturing both the urgency and humanity of the Civil War’s final year, Ellsworth offers a riveting account of courage, sacrifice, and rebirth—the story of how America nearly lost itself—and how it fought to become whole again.”
—Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Devil in the Grove
“Scott Ellsworth explores little known corners of the story and destroys long-held myths around the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and in so doing, the author helps draw a line
between that complex period in this country's history and our own tumultuous times.”
—NPR's Book of the Day
“This is a book that unspools before you like a movie. Its accuracy and sheer readability make it eminently teachable. In Midnight on the Potomac, Ellsworth supplies that rarest of gifts: a history with the power to break through and win the heart of all readers.”
—Amity Shlaes, New York Times bestselling author of Coolidge
Scott Ellsworth is the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Game, winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. He has written about American history for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Formerly a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, he is also the author of The World Beneath Their Feet and Death in a Promised Land, his groundbreaking account of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Scott lives in Ann Arbor, where he teaches in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.