We Are All Americans: The American Civil War Retold - Paperback

by Richard a. Radoccia (Author)

Join the journey into one of the most captivating and seminal events in all of American history. We Are All Americans is the story of the American Civil War, retold in a 21st century cable news setting, to experience the drama as it occurred. The United States in 1865 was a dramatically different country from the one that went to the polls in 1860. In 1860, there were only two other democratic countries - Switzerland and New Zealand. The rulers and the ruled of the world were watching to see what would happen to the American experiment in democracy. The American Civil War was a political struggle between the Union without slavery or slavery without the Union that turned into war. We Are All Americans is a retelling of how the United States was transformed through the words of the three most central figures of the time - Jefferson Davis, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. The story is communicated and colored by three, contemporary reporters who describe the events as they unfold, in time linear fashion. It is often said the country entered the war as the United States, plural, and emerged a nation, as the United States, singular. Experience this transformation through We Are All Americans.

Author Biography

I once lived in Manhattan near Madison Square Park, a very lovely place amid the incessant traffic and noise of the intersecting roadways of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. New York today is as much of a melting pot of the world's human inhabitants as any city in the United States, and, in that sense, exemplary of American ideals. It is therefore, on the surface, fitting that a city park is dedicated to James Madison, who is often referred to as the Father of the Bill of Rights. Factually, Madison, like many of his Virginia contemporaries, owned slaves to cultivate his tobacco and other crops. He also supported the three-fifths amendment of the Constitution which gave slaveholders, like himself, more voting power in the House of Representatives. At the southwest entrance of the Park is a statue of William H. Seward, the 12th Governor of NY and one of its Senators and Secretary of State under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson. Seward is perhaps best known for the purchase of Alaska. He was also a determined opponent of slavery and instrumental in forming the Republican Party in the 1850's. Seward lost the Republican Primary to Abraham Lincoln, whose election initiated southern secession and, soon thereafter, the Civil War. Seward's statesmanship helped to keep Europe from recognizing the Confederacy, enabling the Union to win the war, abolish slavery and repeal the "three-fifths" amendment. So there you have, in one park, a memorial to one man who helped create "a more perfect union" and to another who, some four score and nine years later, helped make that union more perfect. I often asked park-walkers who would speak to me if they knew who James Madison was. I fared much worse by asking about Seward. Of course, most did know where to find Shake Shack. There are thousands of books on the Civil War. Unfortunately, most people do not read books anymore. Yet I felt compelled to tell the story of the Civil War as I think it is best told - in chronological order - in order to convey the true highs and lows a citizen of that time would have experienced. At that point I thought of cable news as a way to tell the "story of the Civil War as it happened." People watch cable news. My hope is that this format - in print and hopefully soon as an audio book - will heighten the awareness of the most seminal event in American history. Clearly, even in 2017, the Civil War still engenders passion. I think it is time for all Americans to understand why. Laurel, New York