Roger Bishop

The 37th and 38th Congresses, who served from 1861 until 1865, were among the most important in American history. They passed legislation that kept the nation together during the Civil War, but they also broke ground on other extraordinary measures—such as Western homesteading, land-grant colleges and the Transcontinental Railroad, which transformed the U.S. socially and economically. In his compelling and vivid Congress at War, Fergus M. Bordewich delves deep into the difficult day-to-day politics that drove these achievements.

In focus are four key members of Congress. Three were Republicans: Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Ben Wade of Ohio, both called Radicals, and Senator William Fessenden of Maine, who was more cautious. The fourth was Clement Vallandigham, a Democrat from Ohio with Southern sympathies.

Stevens, as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, dealt with the daily expenses of the military, as well as critical war measures. Fessenden’s greatest contribution to the Union victory was his leadership of the Senate Finance Committee, where he raised the money to sustain the war through crisis after crisis. What’s more, his vote to acquit Andrew Johnson during his impeachment trial may have decisively changed the course of history. Vallandigham was one of the great dissenters in our history, while Wade ably and effectively chaired the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Many congressmen insisted that they had the power to shape the course of the war. Some were even ahead of President Lincoln in such matters as the emancipation of slaves, enacting an incremental series of laws that helped abolitionism become public policy. One of their boldest and most controversial actions was the establishment of the aforementioned Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which, over four years, investigated almost every aspect of the war and pressured the president to move more decisively against slavery and to take more aggressive military action.

This recounting of a pivotal time in our history is superb and deserves a wide readership.

The United States ended its participation in the transatlantic slave trade on January 1, 1808, but Congress still allowed the domestic buying and selling of slaves. In 1835, one congressman declared the District of Columbia “the principal mart of the slave trade of the Union.” Slaves were involved in the construction of the U.S. Capitol and almost all public buildings in D.C. before the Civil War. As the economy grew, so did the demand for slaves. For most slave traders, it was a lucrative business, with profit margins of around 20% or more. One of the most successful slave traders was William H. Williams, who sold thousands of slaves and maintained the notorious Yellow House, a prison where he held his captives until they were sold.

In his meticulously researched and superbly crafted Williams’ Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts, historian Jeff Forret chronicles the convoluted and tragic misadventures of Williams, who purchased 21 men and six women from the Virginia State Penitentiary in 1840. Although many of these people had been convicted on flimsy or circumstantial evidence, they were considered felons and sentenced to be executed. However, rather than following through with their sentences, the governor had the power to sell them with the promise that they would only be sold out of the country. Williams purchased them and took them to New Orleans, the largest of the Southern slave markets, on his way to Texas (not yet a U.S. state). The problems began when Williams was arrested for breaking a law that forbade the introduction of enslaved convicts into Louisiana—and the resulting legal issues continued for 29 years. This narrative takes us through a world of legal wrangling that held no concern for enslaved people other than for their value as property.

In addition, Forret explores in detail the financial, governmental and societal structures that allowed slavery to flourish, as well as the personalities who aided and challenged the prevailing system. Some did both: Francis Scott Key owned slaves but abhorred slavery and represented slave owners, enslaved people and free black people in court. He was also influential in getting his brother-in-law and friend Roger B. Taney named to the Supreme Court, where he is best known for his role in the 1857 Dred Scott case.

This is a vivid and absorbing account of the exploitation of human beings whose suffering meant profit for others, all of which is part of our nation’s history.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was one of the most important acts of Congress in our history and crucial to an orderly settlement of the American West. It began taking shape on March 1, 1786, when Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam convened a meeting at the Bunch-of-Grapes tavern in Boston. The men there devised an ambitious plan to guarantee what would later be known as the American way of life. Veterans would be provided property in the Ohio country as payment for their military services. The conditions of this plan would allow freedom of religion and education but wouldn’t allow slavery. From this meeting, the Ohio Company was formed, coupling the group’s idealism with land speculation.

In his absorbing new book, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, bestselling author and most readable of historians David McCullough brings to life the story of the courageous men and women who dealt with many hard realities to found the city that became Marietta, Ohio. Letters, diaries, journals and other primary sources give us an intimate portrait of the community. McCullough focuses on five men, quite different from each other, who were instrumental to the venture’s success. Women were responsible for many things, as well, but since they recorded little of their hardships, we have few of their first-person accounts.

Putnam did much of the planning for the first Ohio Company group to settle in the West, and he was their leader. Manasseh Cutler didn’t move to Marietta himself, but his son Ephraim did, and he and Putnam were personally responsible for prohibiting slavery in the new state of Ohio. Joseph Barker, a skilled carpenter, became a notable architect, and Dr. Samuel Hildreth was a pathbreaking physician and an important historian of Marietta.

There’s so much more, including visits from Marquis de Lafayette and John Quincy Adams. And what about Aaron Burr’s trips to the area, the first less than a year after he killed Alexander Hamilton? McCullough has again worked his narrative magic and helped us to better understand those who came before us.