Lincoln’s Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, D.C.

Though one might assume the man atop the eponymous citadel would get the most attention, the newest from Lincoln biographer Winkle (The Young Eagle) is really about the nation’s capital—how it weathered and changed during the Civil War—and the citizens, slaves, and soldiers who lived in and moved through it. He describes his account as an “interior history” of Washington, D.C.—a phrase borrowed from Walt Whitman, from when the poet was in the city to find his brother George, who had been wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg—and that description is right on the money. Beginning with a portrait of the city before the war, Winkle examines the capital’s conflicted relationship with slavery, as well as the political implications of its unique geographical location—it’s not quite the North, and it’s not quite the South. When the Civil War finally starts, Winkle hits his stride, describing a community far more divided and dangerous than most people today can appreciate. Far from being a unified bastion of antislavery pols, the capital was plagued with interior troubles and threatened by encroaching Rebel forces. Well-researched and thoroughly engaging, Winkle’s history is a welcome addition to a body of Civil War literature that too often privileges men and massacres. (Aug.)