The Scariest Book I’ve Read Isn't Fiction

When you think of scary stories, your mind bounces to the fantasy or fiction genres. Demons, dragons, psychological thrillers, bad guys with bombs, etc. It seldom draws you back to a time in history when decadence, immorality, and self-indulgence were so pervasive that it was viewed as noble.

I’m talking about the period before the U.S. Civil War.

In his 2024 release of The Demon of Unrest, author Erik Larson details the years and actions that led up to the Civil War. Larson, as he has in all his historical retellings, researched with incredible accuracy and depth the conviction of the southern confederates who tried to protect their wealth and lifestyle.

Larson’s exhaustive research led to a 490-page monster of a book, supported by a 52-page bibliography filled with references from historical archives, libraries, and history books. His sources included personal collections of diaries, letters, notes, and other documents.

Larson, known for his in-depth historical books, both fiction and non-fiction, outdid himself with The Demon of Unrest.

Why do I consider a book written about a well-known period in U.S. history, over 160 years ago, scary? Because Larson focuses on the underlying story behind the forces that drove the U.S. to the brink of dissolution.

Emphasizing that those forces are still alive and well in 2024, I believe Larson is firing a warning shot that history may well repeat itself, and the outcome, although historic, may not be fortunate.

As I read this book, I was appalled at how little I knew about the secessionist movement and the events leading up to the Civil War. It made me wonder how people could not see the problems with society and why they could not move forward without the bloodiest war in U.S. history.

The answer, of course, is that the nation was divided between people who would do anything to protect their wealth and lifestyle and people who, as outside observers, could see the problems with that lifestyle. Not that the abolitionist movement was always righteous, it wasn’t. Abolitionists had their own agenda, and many times were power hungry as well.

It’s hard to put into perspective until you read some accounts that Larson documented.

We all think of slavery as wrong, or at least we should, because subjugating other people for your personal gain cannot be right. When I learned about slavery as a child, it was about blacks being made to work the fields of cotton and tobacco, living in squalor, and being beaten by uncaring overseers. That, of course, was true, but slavery went well beyond making people work in the fields.

It was the slave trade that brought in most of the planters’ wealth. Slave trading accounted for more of the southern planters’ wealth than the crop production of their farms. Consequently, they bred and sold blacks like cattle. A healthy young male could bring thousands of dollars. It had me wondering how much a slave with the physical prowess and brains of Lebron James might be worth.

Young females who could produce healthy children were sold to repopulate other plantations. The owner kept the smart or pretty ones to be used as a form of concubine.

Protecting The Lifestyle

It was more than just plantations and slave trading that characterized the Southern planter lifestyle. They believed that their wealth elevated them to a position of royalty. They portrayed it as honor and chivalry. The belief was their lofty place entitled them to lord over slaves, free blacks, poor whites, and, of course it entitled them to mistresses and concubines. Women had no prospects for self-determination. Their only recourse was to find a man to support them and offer them a comfortable lifestyle.

In the early chapters, Larson delves into the lifestyle of James Hammond, a Carolina slave owner, Governor, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Hammond, who declared himself to be an honorable and chivalrous man, wrote about how slavery produced the best of all societies.

He was a candidate for the U.S. Senate when he became involved in a scandal over sexual dalliances he had with his nieces, ages 13 to 19 years old. Hammond attempted to defend his actions as proper when he wrote he was “a creature of chivalric romance.” Yet, in a letter to a colleague, he expressed a fear that his scandal may have cost him his bid for the Senate. His admittance showed he knew his dalliances were less than chivalrous.

I loved the way Larson used writings from people who, if alive today, we would call “influencers” to depict the mindset of the nation. Author Mary Chestnut, a slave owner, described the conviction of the Southern hatred toward the enemy northern abolitionists, who wanted to take away their chivalrous lifestyle of privilege. William Lloyd Garrison, an abolitionist, started an abolitionist paper, The Liberator, using his medium to promote the freeing of enslaved people.

Normalizing bad behavior

There is no question that everyone has different moral standards. Over time, what is accepted as normal becomes morally right. Fast forward to 2024.

Let’s use as an example, Jefferey Epstein, the multi-billionaire accused of sex trafficking.

Epstein, associated with politicians and oligarchs on both sides of the political fence. People who believed that their wealth allowed them the privilege to subjugate desperate young men and women. If those desperate people happen to be lost souls with no one to protect them, tough luck; they’re just losers, anyway.

As I read the book The Demon of Unrest, I couldn’t help but compare the perilous changes the U.S. (and the world) is undergoing today. Influencers are working very hard to normalize inappropriate behavior by portraying their acts as acceptable and unharmful to good people.

Is History Repeating Itself?

Today, we hear significant talk of secession by some states or strong reductions in the power of the federal government in exchange for local and regional laws that are more accepting of the lifestyle they choose. It is far easier to manipulate local politics than national.

When you overlay the reasons for division between the parties from the pre-Civil War era with today’s political divide, amazing similarities emerge. Most of those reasons center around wealth and power. 

The book culminates with the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the start of the U.S. Civil War, America’s bloodiest conflict. By some estimates, there were nearly 1.5 million casualties from the Civil War. Nearly all Americans.

Roughly 2% of the U.S. population, an estimated 620,000 men, lost their lives in the line of duty.

As many men died in captivity during the Civil War as were killed in the whole of the Vietnam War. Hundreds of thousands died in the field, not from bullets but from disease.

Many alleged the war was about freedom, or at least what they claimed freedom meant to them. One side chose freedom for all. The other side chose freedom only for themselves.

Scary, to say the least.