Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

In Stan Haynes’s And Slavery No More, as the Civil War pushes toward its third year, Montgomery Tolliver serves inside President Abraham Lincoln’s administration while helping manage Union weapons production at a critical juncture. Lincoln privately debates whether presidential war powers can legally free enslaved people in Confederate territory, placing Monty near one of the most consequential decisions in American history. At the same time, a hidden secret from Monty’s youth resurfaces when an unknown blackmailer reveals knowledge of a failed conspiracy connected to President John Tyler and the annexation of Texas nearly twenty years earlier. Reporter Robert Geddis joins Monty in tracing the source of the blackmail while Confederate officer Ezekiel Colton has information that could alter the course of the war itself. If the blackmailer exposes Monty before Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, the scandal could destroy both men at the exact moment the administration faces its most dangerous political crisis.

Stan Haynes’s And Slavery No More puts readers inside a country trying to decide what kind of nation it plans to become while the Civil War keeps taking pieces from nearly every family involved. Historical fiction works best when people speak, think, and react like citizens inside their own century, and the period details are on point. Washington feels lived in through crowded taverns near the Navy Yard, where Pinkerton agents track suspects through winter streets, while Sharpsburg carries the aftermath of battle in crowded hospital tents standing beside fields still holding bodies weeks after Antietam. I love the actual blackmail plot and how Haynes uses it to drive the story. There are a lot of Civil War novels, but none like this. Monty is likeable in his fallibility. The resistance to living honestly is a major flaw that genuinely humanizes him and shapes his arc. Haynes is a skilled writer, and it shows here with polished, intelligent prose and an immersive story. Readers interested in Civil War fiction that leans into a private life with public consequences in Lincoln’s administration will enjoy this book. Very highly recommended.