Robert J. Cook's Civil War Senator: William Pitt Fessenden and the Fight to PDF

the most proficient and influential American politicians of the 19th century, William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869) helped devise Union grand procedure throughout the Civil warfare. a local of Maine and son of a fiery New England abolitionist, he served within the usa Senate as a member of the Whig get together through the Kansas-Nebraska hindrance and performed a formative position within the improvement of the Republican social gathering. during this richly textured and fast moving biography, Robert J. prepare dinner charts Fessenden’s upward push to strength and probes the powerful mixture of political ambition and republican ideology which impelled him to hunt a spot within the U.S. Senate at a time of emerging pressure among North and South. A decided and self-disciplined guy who fought, now not continually effectively, to maintain his passions in payment, Fessenden helped to spearhead Republican occasion competition to proslavery growth in the course of the strife-torn 1850s and led others to withstand the cotton states’ efforts to secede peaceably after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. in the course of the Civil conflict, he chaired the Senate Finance Committee and served as President Lincoln’s moment head of the Treasury division. In either positions, he shaped and applied wartime monetary coverage for the USA. moreover, Fessenden’s multifaceted dating with Lincoln helped to foster potent operating family among the president and congressional Republicans. prepare dinner outlines Fessenden’s many contributions to severe elements of northern grand process and to the sluggish shift to a good overall struggle coverage opposed to the Confederacy. such a lot particularly, cook dinner indicates, Fessenden helped craft congressional coverage in regards to the confiscation and emancipation of slaves. cook dinner additionally information Fessenden’s tenure as chairman of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction after the battle, within which he authored that committee’s document. even if he sanctioned his party’s holiday with Andrew Johnson lower than a 12 months after the war’s finish, cook dinner explains how Fessenden labored decisively to thwart makes an attempt by way of Radical Republicans to revolutionize post-emancipation society within the defeated Confederacy. the 1st biography of Fessenden in over 40 years, Civil warfare Senator unearths an important yet usually sidelined old determine and explains the crucial position performed by means of get together politics and partisanship within the coming of the Civil warfare, northern army victory, and the final word failure of postwar Reconstruction. prepare dinner restores Fessenden to his position as the most vital politicians of a afflicted generation.