Overview

The Partisans tells the story of the feud that dominated American politics in the decades that followed the Civil War. It is the first detailed account of the battle between Republicans James G. Blaine and Roscoe Conkling. Blaine and Conkling fought for dominance on Capitol Hill and smoke-filled political convention halls. Their feud stoked the madness that led to the assassination of President James A. Garfield. When Blaine finally won the party's presidential nomination in 1884, hostility from New York Republicans still loyal to Conkling helped make Blaine the first Republican to lose a presidential election since 1856. As they fought for power and responded to the changing conditions of post-Civil War America, Blaine and Conkling helped shape the direction of their party and change the course of history.

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9781889020617

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Reviews

""Robert B. Mitchell masterfully brings alive two forgotten characters who defined the politics of the post-Civil War era. He humanizes a House speaker and senator whose careers became intertwined for decades and whose enmity for one another probably kept both out of the White House. It's a gripping tale of corruption and patronage, with a dash of sex and lots of strife thrown in, plus a tragic story of how the federal government turned its back on the promises of Reconstruction. Politics is often defined by rivalry, and this was a good one.""- James Hohmann, columnist, The Washington Post""Robert B. Mitchell has written a fascinating political biography of two major players in the Republican Party during the Gilded Age. Prior to Mitchell's marvelous and thoroughly researched investigation into the Blaine-Conkling feud, these political leaders had been consigned to the dustbin of history. Now they have returned in this well-written and well-argued book."" - Hervey Priddy, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Presidential History, Southern Methodist University. ""Gilded Age politics echoed our own, with the simultaneous rise of powerful oligarchs, a white Protestant ethno-nationalist movement, political assassinations, and government corruption on a staggering scale. In telling the story of two congressional titans doggedly fighting to guide their party and country, Mitchell has given us a novel and revealing account of how America navigated this fractious, transformative age."" -- Colin Woodard, historian and author of American Nations, American Character, Union, Nations Apart, Republic of Pirates, and The Lobster Coast.

Author Information

Robert B. Mitchell is a retired Washington Post news service editorand award-winning biographer. He is the author of Congress and theKing of Frauds: Corruption and the Credit Mobilier Scandal at the Dawnof the Gilded Age, and Skirmisher: The Life, Times, and Political Career ofJames B. Weaver. In 2009, the State Historical Society of Iowa presentedMitchell with the Benjamin F. Shambaugh Award, given annually to theauthor of the previous year's most significant book about Iowa history, for Skirmisher. Mitchell's work has been published by the Post, the DesMoines Register, American Heritage, Time, America's Civil War, and American History. He is a graduate of Grinnell College.

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