Fresh Air - Erik Larson On The Dawn Of The Civil War

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

In The Demon of Unrest, author Erik Larson chronicles the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the start of the Civil War, drawing parallels to today's political climate.Also, David Bianculli reviews the FX/Hulu spy thriller series The Veil, starring Elisabeth Moss.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. When the country is deeply divided and political rivals come to see each other not merely as competitors, but as enemies determined to destroy the nation, where does it take us? My guest, journalist and historian Eric Larson, has a new book closely examining the period between the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 and the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston five months later, which sparked the long and bloody Civil War between the North and South. Larson was researching the Civil War on January 6, 2021, when the assault on the U.S. Capitol occurred. He writes that he had

the eerie feeling that present and past had merged. It was unsettling, he writes, that in 1861, two great moments of national dread centered on the certification of the electoral college vote and the presidential inauguration. Larson's book focuses on key players in the drama that followed Lincoln's election as it appeared that the long-simmering conflict over slavery in the United States might finally be headed towards a violent resolution. Eric Larson is the author of eight previous books, six of them national bestsellers. He was last on Fresh Air to talk about his profile of Winston Churchill's leadership in World War II, titled The Splendid and the Vile. His new book is The Demon of Unrest, a saga of hubris, heartbreak,

and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War. Well, Eric Larson, welcome back to Fresh Air. Well, thank you. You know, as I mentioned in the introduction, when the assault on the Capitol occurred in 2021, there was a resonance, you felt, with the period you were studying, which was when the nation was approaching the Civil War. And I just wonder, as you have watched American politics unfold, as your research continued, did you find yourself thinking, oh, you know, this public figure of today reminds me of

someone in the pre-Civil War period, or this act of extremism or compromise reminded you of something that you were researching? Well, what it is, is that rather than any one particular individual reminding me of some character in my book, because honestly, the characters that I've chosen to represent in this book are really quite unique in their nature. What does strike me as very much a parallel is this discord, this intense discord that seems to be running through the political intercourse in this country right now. And this idea of the demon of unrest really, I think, is still very much current. It's almost as if there is this demon afoot in the land. And sometimes, frankly, it's a little hard to understand exactly why. Well, let's get into the story here. It begins in South Carolina. And a question you pose early is, how did South Carolina, a scantily populated state, become the fulcrum for America's greatest tragedy? Tell us something

about South Carolina of 1860 and its principal city, Charleston. So South Carolina in 1860 was a state in decline. It was a small state, relatively primitive state. It was known throughout the South as being sort of perpetually in rebellion, perpetually cantankerous, always sort of at the leading edge of discord. And come 1860, all of that sort of coalesced with the state on December 20th, 1860, deciding to secede from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln. So it was a series of forces that came to play, you know, the political structures in South Carolina, the fact that the slave-owning patriarchy, the slavocracy, as some called it, then the chivalry, as they called themselves, held all the power, and they were absolutely reliant on slavery. There was no question of that. And they feared, they feared perhaps irrationally, that Abraham Lincoln had plans to immediately abolish slavery,

and they could not countenance that. And that was really the fuel that led to their vote on December 20, 1860, to secede. They seceded months before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Yes. There were 110,000 more enslaved blacks in South Carolina than whites. Right. The planters, as you call them, essentially the landholders, called themselves the chivalry. What did that mean?

Why that name? I found that fascinating to actually call themselves the chivalry. But what that really spoke to was their sense of honor, this deep-seated culture of honor. And it was fascinating to me because it was fed, actually, or reinforced incredibly by romantic literature, by Sir Walter Scott, by Tennyson. They embraced these books. The book Ivanhoe was just on everybody's shelf.

The chivalry even engaged in what was referred to as rings tournaments or actually sometimes heads and rings tournaments where they would dress up as knights and adopt a knight persona from Sir Walter Scott or some other writer of chivalric literature. And then they would ride wildly down this course with lances, trying to pierce small hanging rings instead of jousting, of course, with each other. And then at the end of this, if it was a heads and rings tournament, the goal was to, you're done, you pull out your saber, and you hack away at this inanimate figure, thankfully, inanimate figure at the end of the course.

So this chivalry thing was a real phenomenon and what it really reflected was this deep sense of honor. And, of course, this meant you would treat other whites honorably. The enslaved blacks who were the mainstay of the economies were treated, of course, very cruelly. Well, yes, of course. You know, the chivalry aspect, it's very important to understand how this whole thing came about. You know, there was, in 1800, the world began, there was this V that began to form with regard to slavery. Britain banned the international trade in slavery. The United Britain banned the international trade in slavery. The United States banned the international trade in slavery in 1802,

but allowed the domestic trade to continue. But the North and the advanced states of Europe began moving more and more away from any sort of acceptance of slavery. It became repulsive and something to be reviled. As it did so in the South, the American South was one of the last holdouts with regard to slavery. With the North hammering away at the South, accusing them of all these evil things, the South developed, interestingly, began to persuade itself that slavery was actually a positive good. This was the whole pro-slavery ethos. So you had this V ever widening, this rift

ever widening between the rest of the world, which saw slavery as an unalloyed evil, and the South, which began to convince itself and ultimately did convince itself that slavery was a positive good. The V being plunging support for slavery everywhere else and the rise in the South. So as the nation was increasingly divided over slavery and the rhetoric was increasingly intense, the election of 1860 loomed, which put Abraham Lincoln in the White House. This was a contentious and unusual contest. I mean, it's... Briefly, just explain what happened in this presidential election. There are four candidates running for president, Lincoln being one of them. And interestingly, in 10 southern states, they wouldn't even put him on the ballot. They were so afraid and so angry about him being the potential, being the nominee for, Republican nominee for

president. So you've got these four candidates on the ballot, which pretty much assured that Abraham Lincoln would be the victor in this race. Abraham Lincoln had been very, very direct about the fact that his goal was not the abolition of slavery at all. He had no interest in that. In fact, he had interesting opinions about abolitionists. His goal was to prevent the expansion of slavery. It was fine that it existed where it was. He even went so far as to support the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which to northern abolitionists,

northern anti-slavery people, was just a horror. This was an act that allowed Southern planters to travel north to seize fugitive slaves and bring them back to the South for trial or punishment or whatever they wanted to do. This had led in turn in the North to the advent of so-called personal liberty laws, which then further offended the South. This was another affront to them. But anyway, so here you have Lincoln. He's proposing one thing. The South is convinced that he actually means to do something very different. And that's what happened as of November 6, 1860. Right. So there's four candidates in the race. He gets about 40% of the popular vote, but gets an electoral majority. So it's kind of like modern race. He gets about 40 percent of the popular vote but gets an electoral majority.

So it's kind of like modern times. There are ways to dispute what might happen. But the South saw this as a seminal moment and despite what he'd said about slavery, believed Lincoln would put an end to it. And so South Carolina seceded within a month or so. So let's talk about Fort Sumter. I mean it was this fort on an island in Charleston Harbor. I would say if folks have never visited Charleston, it's a great place to visit. And it's really striking to see this fort out there in the harbor. But it was one

of many federal military installations around the country. Why did this particular fort become the focus of such enormous tension over the next four months? In Charleston Harbor, there was a significant federal presence which had evolved mainly because of an engineering effort to build fortifications to prevent attack from foreign powers by the sea. So Charleston Harbor, a lovely spot, by the way, Charleston Harbor had a number of fortifications, Fort Sumter being one, Fort Sumter being the most prominent and in South Carolina's view, ominous of them, a classic sea fortress surrounded by water. But there was also another fort, very well armed, again, meant for the defense of America against foreign fleets, called Fort Moultrie. There was also another fort, Castle

Pinckney, Fort Johnson. There was an arsenal and so forth. And these were under the control of the United States Army. And as South Carolina moved increasingly towards secession, they began to seem increasingly like this affront to South Carolina autonomy. It was sort of like a thorn in the eye for South Carolina. And this became a source of immense tension. Right, right. So you have this fortress which could, you know, if it were an issue, it could prevent ships from coming into Charleston Harbor. But it was really, in a way, an assault on the honor of the Confederates, or the Confederates to be, that this Union fortress was there. It was commanded by a guy named Major Robert Anderson, who was, you say, sympathetic to the South. Was he a Southerner himself?

Yeah, he was a Southerner himself. He was actually a former slave owner. He was married to a woman who was from Georgia who came from a prominent slave-owning family. Robert Anderson and his wife had sold their slaves. Anderson, while he was sympathetic to the South, his loyalty, his true loyalty, unshakable, was to the United States Army. He had made an oath to the Army, and by God, he would adhere to that oath. So here he is. He's put in charge of the federal presence in Charleston Harbor. And, you know, with the idea undoubtedly that he might help mollify the South.

So Robert Anderson, who was the Union commander of Fort Sumter and the other facilities around Charleston Harbor, in December, around Christmas time, he does something. He, without telling anybody, he kind of does it stealthily. He shuts down the other forts, the Union forces at Fort Moultrie, sets fire to the casings of the cannons, moves all of those military forces to Fort Sumter, the one that's on the island in the middle of the harbor. Now, in doing this, he doesn't fire on any southerners. He doesn't kill anybody.

He just reassembles his forces into this one less vulnerable fort. This was a huge deal, right? Why? This was a huge deal. And I think it's important also to recognize just a little more detail on how Anderson did this. He sensed that things were coming to the point where conflict could turn to violence. And that fort where his headquarters were, Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor, was about as vulnerable a fort as could be because from the battlements in front, which were meant to defend against these so-called foreign invaders, it was a strong fortress. But nobody expected that they'd have to defend against Americans coming from behind. So this thing was absolutely vulnerable. He recognized this.

And he gets this plan that he is going to move all his people to Fort Sumter. And he keeps this plan secret, even from his officers. He's going to move these contingents, the skimpy contingents. He only has 75 men when the Fort Sumter complement as designed should have had like 650 men. But he moves the men and their families, and their families under cover of darkness. It's a very, very tense move, actually. It could have gone so wrong. But he moves them.

And one of his goals was to take advantage of the Christmas weekend. He wanted to move them, actually, on the evening of Christmas Day, December 25th. The weather was too stormy to allow the passage of these boats, so he decided they would do it the following night. And he pulls it off miraculously without conflict. The first sign of this for people in Charleston the next morning is smoke rising from Fort Moultrie, where he has ordered the gun carriages of the cannon burned and the cannon spiked. That is, you know, some metal forced into their touch hole so that they couldn't be

fired. And so, this fortress, this presence that was already absolutely infuriating to South Carolina, suddenly becomes even more so. I mean, suddenly, forces in Charleston seize all the other forts. They seize Moultrie. They seize Pinckney. They seize Fort Johnson. They seize the federal arsenal. But here still is this Fort Sumter sitting out there on this island as a perpetual rebuke

to everything that now South Carolina holds holy. And so the question was, would the Southerners attack the fort? Would people in the fort fire on Southern forces? And tension reigned for months. It's important to know also at this point that in December of 1860 that Fort Sumter, while it looks incredibly imposing, is this immense brick and earth and stone presence on a man-made atoll. But this fort, this Fort Sumter, was nowhere near complete. Only a few of its guns were mounted. And so suddenly, Anderson arrives with these families

and has to mount the guns, make this fort as impregnable as he possibly can with this small complement of men and some laborers imported also. So if we look at the situation as 1860 comes to an end, Abraham Lincoln is the apparent winner of the election, but the vote hasn't been certified. That doesn't happen until mid-February, later than it is nowadays. And so he's in Illinois. The incumbent Democratic president, pro-slavery president, James Buchanan, is kind of just trying to navigate this situation in which southern states are beginning to secede, right? I mean it was South Carolina seceded in December and then in January, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama. So the nation is kind of beginning to come apart. And there's a lot of focus on Fort Sumter, this island fortress in the harbor of Charleston where a Union garrison is holding tight and not surrendering to southern forces who would see that as territory they can now occupy.

So you got Abe Lincoln. He's in Illinois. Watching all this happen, he eventually makes his way towards Washington for the inauguration. He gives many, many speeches. What does he have to say about what's going in the country? What posture does he strike? Well, before we get to Lincoln's really, I think, charming and amazing journey, I think it's important to note what happened in between. And I think it's a big part of the story. From November 6th when Lincoln was elected, I mean, Lincoln was enough of a lawyer to recognize he was not president yet. Even when the electoral vote was counted, yes, he'd be more president, if you will, but he would not be the president until inauguration day, which is March 4th in that time. And so, he decides that he's not going to

overtly say anything. He's not going to interfere with the political situation as it exists. Now, quietly, he seeds the clouds with remarks that he wants others to give and news reporters and so forth, but he himself keeps silence. You know, there's sort of this great silence. Simultaneously, we have James Buchanan, whose lackluster, it's a nice way to put it, whose lackluster administration is coming to a close. He's not doing anything either. He's absolutely inert. All he wants, all he wants is to get out of this administration without a war on his side of the ledger. He wants to get back to his estate in Pennsylvania, outside Lancaster, called Wheatlands, and in the worst

way. So there's nobody really addressing this crisis as things begin to intensify. Lincoln does make it clear in his remarks from time to time that he is not seeking to immediately abolish slavery. But that doesn't seem to convince anybody in the South because states continue to secede. Again, in advance of his even being inaugurated,

in February, mid-February, there was the certification of the electoral votes, which would secure Lincoln's win. And he was a bit concerned about this. The army moved into Washington to ensure order. There were rumors of southern militias that might try and disrupt it. It actually – well, what actually happened when the electors met in Washington? Yeah. So the electoral count took place. And even more, adding to the narrative tension is the fact that the vice president who was going to be counting the electoral votes, certifying the electoral vote, had been Lincoln's closest competitor in the election. He was a candidate for president.

Yes, exactly. So you've got this thing shaping up that is very reminiscent, honestly, of January 6th, 2021. But, you know, the electoral count went off just fine. Now, there were moments when there was a report of a clamoring mob trying to get in. But overall, it was a very orderly thing. Winfield Scott, the commanding general at that time, had made sure that he had forces in place to try to stem any attempt to disrupt the count. And it came off fine. We're going to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Eric Larson. His new book is The Demon of Unrest, A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism

at the Dawn of the Civil War. He'll be back to talk more after a short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air. I'm Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado, here to offer a sneak peek of our latest Fresh Air Plus bonus episode. I think what had always been a barrier to my coming out was the sense that no one would cast me, for example, as Romeo

if they knew that in my private life it was Mercutio I fancied rather than Juliet. That's Sir Ian McKellen talking about his decision to come out of the closet in 1988. You can hear how that changed his career for the better by joining Fresher Plus yourself at plus.npr.org. You know, what's interesting about this period is you see everyone wanting to pursue their goals and somehow avoid war. I mean, the Southerners are going to Washington saying, look, we don't want to fight. We want to live together in peace. Let us go our own way. And the Lincoln administration says there's no way we're going to let that happen.

But we don't want to tell them that directly because we don't want to confront them because we don't want to start a war. And a similar kind of thing is playing out in the harbor in Charleston where you have this isolated garrison in Fort Sumter. I mean they're running low on food and ammunition and soap. And you could try and resupply them but then would the Confederates then who built in a lot of new cannons and batteries around the harbor, would they fire on the Union troops and would – or ships. Would they fire on the Union ships and And would – or ships. Would they fire on the Union ships? And then would Fort Sumter's guns open up on the Confederates? And nobody

wanted it to happen. Nobody wanted to start shooting and yet everyone wanted to hold their ground. It was really quite a standoff. This is something I really spent time trying to sort of get my head into it, kind of imagine myself being there, is here's Anderson. Here are his 75 soldiers, members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They are in this fort. They have no instructions coming from Buchanan's administration. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing telling them how to behave, telling them what to do. They are on their own. And as they are in this fort, General Beauregard, pupil of Anderson, pupil of Anderson who taught military artillery tactics at West Point. The southern commander, right.

He is turning Charleston Harbor into a death trap for anybody within Fort Sumter. He is establishing gun batteries, cannon batteries, with seacoast artillery, heavy, heavy artillery on all the land spaces in sort of a broad circle around Fort Sumter. And if you can imagine this, I mean, Anderson and his men on still nights, they could hear the sound of heavy construction at some of these batteries. They could hear these people preparing a cannon with every intention of, if necessary, blowing them out of the water, including Beauregard, his friend. He had every intention, if it came to it, to kill them, kill all his men. So here you have all these batteries. You're hearing this. I mean, it's like being a lamb tied to a stake and you're watching the butcher sharpening his knife on a strop, you know,

and this is the situation that confronted Anderson at that time. Yeah. And what's interesting is that throughout all this, you know, this death dealing preparation, there was a code of honor that they used in dealing with each other. The Confederates would sometimes send a boat to speak to Major Anderson, the Union commander in Fort Sumter, to deal with one issue or another. And I find this remarkable. The Confederates continued to give him mail service. He could write confidential messages to Washington, which would be picked up by the Confederates and then sent to Washington undisturbed, at least until the end, right?

This is kind of remarkable. Yeah, well, mail was sort of sacrosanct. You know, chivalry, honor said, you do not open mail, right? Which was the case until one point in the saga I found absolutely charming, and that is when things are really starting to devolve and the Southerners decide, okay, we're going to suspend mail and we're going to actually take this mail and bring it over to the

headquarters, the Confederate headquarters of the governor of South Carolina there in Charleston, and they're going to read this mail. And there are three guys there. There is the governor. One guy is Beauregard, and one guy is a former federal judge. And they're sitting there, and nobody wants to open this thing.

And so it first goes to—I believe this is the order—it first goes to the federal judge, and he's like, you know, I've spent my career putting people in jail for this, so I can't do it. Then it goes to Beauregard, and he's like, I can't do it. And then it goes to the governor, and he ends up having to open this thing. And they find lots of really, really terrific intelligence about what's going on at Fort Sumter. Right. So things came to a head at Fort Sumter in mid-April when the troops there at that point were so short of food that they were rationing it. I think they were completely out of soap and they didn't have candles, so they were operating in the dark at night.

And they had essentially no food by mid-April. Right. And the Union had decided after a lot of dithering about to try and send ships to reinforce them. But they really, for various reasons, couldn't get in there. And if they got in, they would have been fired on by these Confederate batteries. And the Confederates learned that, in fact, Lincoln had decided to try and reinforce the garrison. And they kind of treated this as an act of war and decided they were going to open fire. And the Confederates sent the Union Commander, Major Anderson, a note saying at 4 a.m. on, was it April 12th, they would open fire. So again, fair warning, code of honor, but it's coming at you, right? Tell us what happened in

the bombardment. Lincoln did something that I, I think, politically was quite brilliant. He decided, okay, he was going to reinforce this Fort Sumter. And he understood, I think, at that point that, you know, this was a no-win situation. And so, you know, try to make it as positive as possible for the Union. So, what he does is he sends a message to South Carolina's governor. And he says, I'm going to send humanitarian supplies, if you didn't use that term at the time,, I'm going to send humanitarian supplies, if you didn't use that term at the time, but I'm going to send humanitarian supplies to the men at Fort Sumter. If they are unmolested, nothing will happen. We will exit the harbor. All will be well.

He knew full well that they would be molested. This was too much for the South Carolina forces. The bombardment begins, and so what Lincoln has gained in this is that the start of the Civil War is on the South's conscience. They started it. And that was sort of a brilliant tactic. What it ultimately gained, who knows, but that was something he felt very important. So then here comes the day of the bombardment. Again, chivalry, courtesy between Anderson and Beauregard. It was almost laughable. It was like, after you, now after you.

I wish to see you after this is all over. All this kind of stuff. When, in fact, Beauregard plans to kill him. They're sending messages saying, you know, I hold you in the highest regard. We're going to meet again? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The closings of these messages back and forth.

And so then comes, okay, this is it, you know. They send a delegation over. Anderson, there had been talk that Anderson planned to evacuate the fort. They come over. They ask him his intentions. And it turns out that it's not quite that easy from his point of view. He will do so, but he's got various qualifications. And that's the point where they send back an ultimatum saying, we are going to begin this bombardment at 4.20 in the morning.

And this is very important because this is like an hour later, right? So 4.20, this bombardment is to begin. And they're all very cordial and anderson says goodbye and says you know i hope that at some point in some future time we may meet again under better circumstances whatever um and so so 430 rolls around everybody's tense there's this scene in charleston harbor you know everybody's wildly partying you know this is like the last the end days you know and so there is the the the shot is fired, which is actually a signal shot to signal all the batteries to begin firing. So the bombardment begins.

It's furious bombardment. The Confederate forces had a huge advantage over the U.S. Army contingent within the fort, you know, which had by now mounted their heavy guns. And that was that the Confederate batteries had one target to fire at. Men at Sumter had, you know, 19 batteries arrayed around the harbor. Right. So they were in a bad situation. Remarkably, I mean, although Fort Sumter took many cannonballs, nobody was killed in the bombardment, which went with more than 3,000 cannon shots,

I believe. But, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Nobody was killed. Minor injuries, which when you imagine how this must have unfolded,

it's just about, is miraculous. Right. But mortars that, mortar shells did set afire the wooden structures inside the fort, which would, in end spread to the powder magazines and created an untenable situation. And so Anderson did essentially have to surrender and did this under terms in which they would they would be given an honorable departure to Union ships and 100-gun salute and the like. But in a way, it was over.

I mean, this had been resolved and it had been resolved with war. Yeah. Yeah. So Anderson recognized that he had no choice but to surrender. But again, honor comes to play. Anderson is – he's not just going to surrender. He needs to do this in an honorable way. He insists on him and his troops being able to salute their flag and with a 100-gun salute and then to march out to a waiting ship. And so the great irony here is that in this quest for honor, the first two deaths of the Civil War occur

because the salute is being fired, comes to the 47th cannon is fired. There is a misfire, catastrophic misfire. One soldier's arm is blown off. He's killed instantly. Another is killed. Another actually dies later. And all because of the quest for honor. Yeah, there were accidental deaths.

There's a great description in the book of 8th and 19th century cannon fire, by the way. A lot of wonderful details are in here. So fire has been exchanged between the two sides. Lincoln's reaction is to issue a proclamation, meaning what? So Lincoln, the day after, and I have to believe that he knew that this would be the ultimate outcome of this. He uses a proclamation calling for military

forces, voluntary military regiments from all states, including the seceded states, by the way. He was an equal opportunity requester. So he asked for militia forces from all states to prepare for this coming conflict. And that's the thing that finally sends the rest of the southern states into the arms of the Confederacy. We'll take another break here. We are speaking with Eric Larson. His new

book is The Demon of Unrest, a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is Fresh Air. You know, one way of looking at these events is that, you know, America blundered into war because people miscalculated or did dumb things. You know, another is that America blundered into war because people miscalculated or did dumb things. Another is that war was inevitable. I mean I know as I read this and you see these two sides trying to achieve their aims without war.

I mean southerners want acceptance without war of succession. The North wants to keep them in the Union but not provoke an armed conflict. And as we read it now, we know that the war was going to come. But I'm wondering, do you think, you know, were there things that could have avoided war? So speculative history is one of the things that I don't do. But having said that, I have to wonder what would have been the outcome if there had been an effectual president in office during that antebellum period instead of James Buchanan. I have to wonder how that could have shaped things. As one character from the moment said, you know, the Times called for Jackson being Andrew Jackson, but Buchanan was no Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson being somebody who, a president who suppressed an earlier, forcefully, not with arms, but with threats, forcefully suppressed a previous rebellious effort by South Carolina, the so-called nullification movement to nullify

the act of federal laws within the state of South Carolina. And Jackson moved very assertively against that. But here's Buchanan, who is allowing this slide, who does nothing, does nothing at the point of when South Carolina declares secession in December 20 of 1860 at a point when there were no artillery batteries surrounding Fort Sumter, when the fort could have been readily reinforced. And actually, the harbor, very likely, the harbor could have been seized by federal forces. Now, that's just me speaking, you know, completely not my territory. But the fact is, Buchanan did nothing. In fact, he gives a speech to Congress, very important speech, in which he basically gives up. He

basically says, there's nothing I can do. It is up to Congress. Up to Congress. Right, right, right, right. Punt. Yeah, yeah. One of the other things that occurred to me, there's a difference between the deep political conflict the nation is experiencing now and that which it experienced in 1860, which is that the lines, the issues of division are less clear now. I mean in 1860, it was – there was this fundamental question. Can we keep the institution that commits African-Americans to lives of bondage and treating humans as property? Can that continue? And now it's just less clear. I think there are all kinds of wild theories about this and that. There's the rich dominating the poor and populism and some see fascism and some see socialist extremism. But the media environment is so much more diffuse.

People hate each other but I'm not sure that the reasons are as clear as they were in 1860. Yeah, yeah. You know, a friend of mine, I was kind of moved by it. He asked me in an email. He said, well, do you think there's going to be a civil war? And, you know, I answered, I said, you know, I don't think there's going to be a civil war, at least not in the sense that there was, you know, back in 1860, you know, with masses of troops marching

over the farmland of Pennsylvania to confront each other at Gettysburg again. But, you know, the potential for violence is there. I mean, I was struck by reading a story, I believe it was in the New York Times, about how the domestic intelligence apparatus in the United States is very concerned about a particular subgroup of fringe folk referred to as accelerationists who want to do things to bring to a head some crisis that would then blow things up and allow the rebuilding of the country or whatever. I don't know what their vision is, but that's something that apparently the FBI and

so forth is very concerned about. So that kind of isolated one-on-one Oklahoma courthouse kind of violence could easily happen. I mean the pressures seem to be there. Well, Eric Larson, thanks so much for speaking with us again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Eric Larson's new book about the months preceding the outbreak of the American Civil War is The Demon of Unrest, a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War. Coming up, David Bianculli reviews the new Hulu series The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss as a British spy befriending a suspected terrorist. This is Fresh Air. Elizabeth Moss, who played Peggy in Mad Men

and starred in The Handmaid's Tale, stars in a new six-part drama series on Hulu. It's called The Veil, and this time she plays a British spy tasked with befriending a suspected female terrorist. The Veil is created and written by Stephen Knight from Pinky Blinders and last year's World War II miniseries, All the Light We Cannot See. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review. The Veil is a spy series about several different spy agencies from the United States, England, and France, all after the same goal. They want to discover the details of a suspected new 9-11-type terrorist plot, reportedly emanating from the Middle East, and stop it before it happens. Sometimes these organizations work together, sometimes they work against one another.

But throughout, the agent who is most crucial to cracking the case is a British super-spy temporarily going under the name of Imogen. She's played by Elizabeth Moss of Mad Men and the Handmaid's Tale, and by the end of the six episodes of The Veil, I was convinced that this is her best role and best performance yet. She's amazing. As a secret agent, she has plenty of secrets of her own, which unfolds slowly as the miniseries progresses. She's a damaged soul with a haunted past, which, for her latest mission, turns out to be a valuable asset. She's been charged to locate and befriend a woman who recently surfaced in a refugee camp on the Syrian and Turkish border. The woman, going by the name Adila, claims to be of Algerian descent and from

France, but several spy agencies suspect her of being the elusive mastermind behind the rumored imminent terrorist plot. Imogen's mission is to locate Adila, who is held under guard at the camp after being attacked and stabbed by other refugees. Imogen offers to help Adila escape while getting close enough to try to ascertain her true identity, motives, and target. Their first meeting sets the stage for how strong-willed both of these women are. Elizabeth Moss, sporting a British accent, is Imogen. Yamna Marwan from Little Birds plays Adila. To keep people alive. Like doctors. You're not a doctor? No. What are you?

Do you need a doctor? Someone stabbed me in the fight. I didn't notice until after. You need antibiotics. No. If they give me medicine, it will be poison. No one will poison you. They hate me.

Do you deserve to be hated? The terrorist Imogen is hunting is known as Jinn al-Raqqa. In folklore, a shapeshifting genie who can assume any form. Is Adilla someone hiding in plain sight by doing precisely that, or is she as innocent as she claims? Imogen, a shapeshifter of sorts herself, uses all her spycraft skills to earn Adilla's trust by helping her in her quest to cross borders and return to Paris, where her young daughter awaits. Their journey is fascinating, with each probing

to learn the other's secrets while protecting her own. It's a bit like Homeland, where you, the viewer, are unsure of each character's true motives. And as the two women go off the grid and spend time with each other, avoiding all the authorities trying to locate them, their relationship keeps deepening. In that way, the veil is a bit like Thelma and Louise. Except sometimes, it's more like Thelma versus Louise. Both characters are delightfully unpredictable. As in this scene from early in episode two, when the two women are on the run. Imogen takes Adilla to a smuggler

they hope will give them new passports and identities to get to Paris. Imogen's plan is to have them pose as singers and belly dancers. But their proposed cover is at risk when the smuggler decides to test them a little by demanding that Adela display her skills. So, you're a dancer, eh? Prove it. She will absolutely not dance for you. If you're caught, she'll be asked. You have no right to ask a- The papers say you're a singer and a dancer. Sing one of your songs.

Go on. That smuggler was suitably impressed. So was Imogen, and so was I. These two actresses are incredibly nuanced and well-matched in these roles, captivating as adversaries and even more so if and when they decide to become allies. The writer and creator of The Veil, Stephen Knight from Peaky Blinders and All the Light We Cannot See, explores their relationship brilliantly. But he also keeps escalating the terrorist plot and following the many agents and agencies trying to crack it. One special standout here is Josh Charles from The Good Wife and Sports Night, who is cast as an aggressive CIA agent on French soil, an ugly American in Paris. He plays his part perfectly. Even so,

the veil at its core is the story of two shape-shifting survivors who are more alike than either of them suspected, and whose realization of that fact may or may not stop a horrifying terrorist attack. It's quite a voyage and quite a drama. David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new series, The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss. On tomorrow's show, the battle over TikTok. Congress and the president say the company must shed its financial ties to China or face a ban in the U.S.

We'll speak with Washington Post tech reporter Drew Harwell about why selling the company is complicated, how TikTok will fight back, and the First Amendment implications of banning the app. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Sallet, Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Thaya Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies. This message comes from NPR sponsor Grammarly. What if everyone at work were an expert communicator? Inbox numbers would drop, customer satisfaction scores would rise, and everyone would be more productive. That's what happens when you give Grammarly to your entire team. Grammarly is a secure AI writing partner that understands your business and can transform it through better communication. Join 70,000 teams who trust Grammarly with their words and their data. Learn more at Grammarly.com.

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