The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta

Wortman, Marc

ISBN 10: 1586484826 / ISBN 13: 9781586484828

Published by Public Affairs, 2009

About this Item

First Edition/First Printing. Binding is tight and square. Pages are clean and unmarked. Dust Jacket is in a brodart cover, not price clipped. Ex-library with usual markings. Seller Inventory # 01279

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta

Publisher: Public Affairs

Publication Date: 2009

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

The destruction of Atlanta is an iconic moment in American history—it was the centerpiece of Gone with the Wind. But though the epic sieges of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Berlin have all been explored in bestselling books, the one great American example has been treated only cursorily in more general histories. Marc Wortman remedies that conspicuous absence in grand fashion with The Bonfire, an absorbing narrative history told through the points of view of key participants both Confederate and Union.

The Bonfire reveals an Atlanta of unexpected paradoxes: a new mercantile city dependent on the primitive institution of slavery; governed by a pro-Union mayor, James Calhoun, whose cousin was a famous defender of the South. When he surrendered the city to General Sherman after forty-four terrible days, Calhoun was accompanied by Bob Yancey, a black slave likely the son of Union advocate Daniel Webster. Atlanta was both the last of the medieval city sieges and the first modern urban devastation. From its ashes, a new South would arise.

About the Author:

Marc Wortman is the author of The Millionaires' Unit: The Aristocratic Flyboys Who Fought the Great War and Invented American Air Power, now in development as a feature film. An award-winning freelance writer, his work has appeared in numerous national magazines. He has taught literature and writing at Princeton University. He lives in New Haven with his wife, daughter, and son.