ABSTRACT
The five months stretching from Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 to his call for 75,000 troops to face down the Confederate rebellion in April 1861 are among the most critical and consequential in U.S. history. These months – sometimes called “the Secession Winter” – comprised a unique historical moment when 31.5 million Americans were faced with the same set of choices about the future of their democratic experiment. As their political system failed them, communities across the country mobilized toward a civil war that would transform a nation, costing the lives of more than 750,000 men and formally freeing four million African Americans from enslavement. 1
