
Midnight on the Potomac
The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
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Narrated by:
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Scott Ellsworth
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By:
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Scott Ellsworth
About this listen
From the author of The Ground Breaking, longlisted for the National Book Award, comes a riveting saga of the last year of the Civil War—and a revealing new account of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Told with a thrilling pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years. Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North. Taking us behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents, Lincoln appears, as do Grant and Sherman. But so do common soldiers, runaway slaves, and an unknown but intrepid female war correspondent named Lois Adams. Rarely, if ever, has a book about the Civil War featured such a rich and diverse cast of characters.
Midnight on the Potomac will also shatter some long-held myths. For more than a century and a half, the Lincoln assassination has been portrayed as the sole brainchild of a disgruntled, pro-South actor. But based on both obscure contemporary accounts and decades of long-ignored scholarship, Ellsworth reveals that for nearly one year before the tragic events at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth had been working closely with agents of the Confederate Secret Service. And the real Booth is far from the one we’ve long been presented with.
Deeply researched yet captivatingly written, Midnight on the Potomac is a new kind of book about the Civil War. In it you will hear about the Confederate attempt to burn down New York City, how Lincoln almost lost the presidency, about the Rebel general who nearly captured Washington, and how thousands of enslaved African Americans freed themselves—and helped secure their nation’s survival. In an age of deep political division such as our own, Scott Ellsworth’s book is an eloquent and gripping testament to the courage, grit, and greatness of the American people.
©2025 Scott Ellsworth (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Adam I. P. Smith
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Gettysburg explains the battle's place in the Civil War, why two vast armies clashed there, and how, in the century and a half since, it has been re-imagined, re-created, and re-enacted. It is the story of a battle which no one planned but which became the bloodiest encounter of the war, and one with dramatically high stakes. The postwar romanticization of Gettysburg as the place of "might-have-beens" is based on a kernel of reality.
By: Adam I. P. Smith
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In the Arena
- Theodore Roosevelt in War, Peace, and Revolution
- By: David S. Brown
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
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Theodore Roosevelt was one of America’s most fascinating presidents—a complex man both publicly and privately. In this sweeping biography, historian David S. Brown takes us on an electrifying journey through Theodore Roosevelt’s life—from his privileged New York upbringing to his transformative presidency that reshaped America’s role on the global stage. In the Arena vividly brings Roosevelt to life as a man of striking contradictions: a rugged outdoorsman with a love for books, a war hero who earned a Nobel Peace Prize, and a larger-than-life figure whose energy seemed boundless.
By: David S. Brown
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Death in Derry
- Martin McGuinness and the Derry IRA’s War Against the British
- By: Jonathan Trigg
- Narrated by: Alan Turkington
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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When civil rights protests in the 1960s gave way to armed struggle, the Provisional IRA in Derry–both city and county–led the fight against the British security forces. In the city Martin McGuinness–a young butcher’s assistant from the Bogside–quickly rose through the ranks, launching a bombing campaign that reduced the city centre to rubble. In tandem, the IRA’s active service units fought the British Army in the streets and alleys of the Bogside, Creggan, Shantallow and the Waterside.
By: Jonathan Trigg
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The Gunfighters
- How Texas Made the West Wild
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The “Wild West” gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it all as a corny myth, more a product of dime novels and B movies than a genuinely important American history. In fact, as Bryan Burrough shows us in his dazzling and fast-paced new book, there’s much more below the surface. For three decades at the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history. The reasons behind this boil down to one word: Texas.
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Hits the target
- By S. S. Felzenberg on 06-09-25
By: Bryan Burrough
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The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864
- Modern War Studies
- By: Hampton Newsome
- Narrated by: J. Rodney Turner
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cold day in early January 1864, Robert E. Lee wrote to Confederate president Jefferson Davis "The time is at hand when, if an attempt can be made to capture the enemy's forces at New Berne, it should be done." Over the next few months, Lee's dispatch would precipitate a momentous series of events as the Confederates, threatened by a supply crisis and an emerging peace movement, sought to seize Federal bases in eastern North Carolina.
By: Hampton Newsome
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Fear No Pharaoh
- American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
- By: Richard Kreitner
- Narrated by: Dean Gallagher
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In Fear No Pharaoh, journalist and historian Richard Kreitner sets this question at the heart of the Civil War era. Using original sources, he tells the intertwined stories of six American Jews who helped to shape a tumultuous time, including Judah Benjamin, the brilliant, secretive lawyer who became Jefferson Davis's trusted confidante; Morris Raphall, a Swedish-born rabbi who defended slavery as biblically justified; and Raphall's rival rabbis—the celebrated Isaac Mayer Wise, who urged Jews to stay out of the slavery controversy, and David Einhorn.
By: Richard Kreitner
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Three Roads to Gettysburg
- Meade, Lee, Lincoln, and the Battle That Changed the War, the Speech That Changed the Nation
- By: Tim McGrath
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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By mid-1863, the Civil War, with Northern victories in the West and Southern triumphs in the East, seemed unwinnable for Abraham Lincoln. Robert E. Lee’s bold thrust into Pennsylvania, if successful, could mean Southern independence. In a desperate countermove, Lincoln ordered George Gordon Meade—a man hardly known and hardly known in his own army—to take command of the Army of the Potomac and defeat Lee’s seemingly invincible Army of Northern Virginia. Just three days later, the two great armies collided at a small town called Gettysburg.
By: Tim McGrath
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On the Trail of the Assassins
- By: Jim Garrison
- Narrated by: Lyle Blaker
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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More than fifty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his murder continues to haunt the American psyche and stands as a turning point in our nation's history. The Warren Commission rushed out its report in 1964, but questions continue to linger: Was there a conspiracy? Was there a coup at the highest levels of government? On the Trail of the Assassins—the primary source material for Oliver Stone's hit film JFK—is Garrison's own account of his investigations into the background of Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of President Kennedy.
By: Jim Garrison
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The CIA Book Club
- The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature
- By: Charlie English
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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For almost five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, standing as the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. With the risk of nuclear annihilation too high for physical combat, conflict was reserved for the psychological sphere. No one understood this battle of hearts, minds, and intellects more clearly than Bucharest-born George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA books program.” This initiative aimed to win the Cold War with literature.
By: Charlie English