"Richards, a leading historian of nineteenth-century America, superbly
illuminates gold-rush California."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In this revelatory study, award-winning historian Leonard L. Richards outlines the links
between the Gold Rush and the Civil War.

Richards explains how Southerners envisioned California as a new market for slaves
for digging for gold, schemed to tie California to the South via railroad, and imagined
splitting off the state's southern half for a slave state. We see how the Gold Rush
influenced other regional and national squabbles, and we meet renegade New York
Democrat David Broderick, who became a force in San Francisco politics in 1849,
and his archrival, William Gwin, a major Mississippi slaveholder. Richards recounts
the political battles alongside the fiery California feuds, duels, and, perhaps, outright
murders as the state came shockingly close to being divided in two.