America's Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery, and the Slow March Toward Civil War

The siege of Charleston by Union forces, the longest in American history, lasted almost two years, but this battle was the last in a century-long conflict for the soul of the nation.

In America’s Longest Siege, historian Joseph Kelly captures the toxic mix of nationalism, paternalism, and wealth that made Charleston the center of the nationwide debate over slavery and the tragic act of secession that doomed both the city and the South. Thoroughly researched and compulsively readable, America’s Longest Siege offers a new take on the Civil War and the culture that made it inevitable.