Evan Stewart once again shows the best qualities of a lawyer and an historian. In his sharp, incisive biography of William Seward, he closely and judiciously amasses and parses the evidence to let the truth shine through. In the process, he has written a compelling, eye-opening story of a crucial player at critical moment in history that will leave you wondering: could America have avoided the Civil War, its 700,000 dead and bitter aftermath, and still—more gradually, perhaps, but more surely—ended the bondage of Black people?—Evan Thomas, author of John Paul Jones, Sea of under, and First: Sandra Day O’Connor

The first months of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency stand as the most critical in the nation’s history. In this deeply researched and tightly argued analysis, Evan Stewart explores the role of the man who thought he should have been the president during this crisis: William Seward. Stewart offers a stimulating discussion of Seward’s attempt to avoid war—and then to win the war when it could not be avoided, reminding us of history’s rich moral complexity. Stewart is charitable both to the historians with whom he disagrees and to Seward and Lincoln, which is the way the best history is written.—Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America

I can think of no political figure as signifcant to U.S. history as William Seward who has received less scholarly attention. Evan Stewart’s rigorously researched yet accessible study is a masterful corrective. His focus on Seward’s 1860-61 effort to “save the Union in my own way” is as instructive as it is revealing.—Richard H. Immerman, author of Empire for Liberty.

Evan Stewart tells a dramatic, important, but little-known story about the coming of the Civil War. William H. Seward, Lincoln’s onetime rival and his Secretary of State, tried to conciliate the South. He failed but bought Lincoln time to begin his presidency and shoulder the burden ahead. A lively, scholarly, and readable book.—Barry Strauss, author of Jews vs. Romans: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire (2025)