I am always on the lookout for historians who can fashion well-worn stories from the past into sparkling new dramas filled with cliffhangers and near-catastrophes that keep me turning pages in taut expectation of an outcome decided centuries ago. Author Scott Ellsworth provides just that in Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America.

Ellsworth’s account commences in media res during the preparations for a renewed Union military campaign under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the spring of 1864. Ellsworth portrays the excitement felt by the Washington, D.C., population, abuzz with hope for a swift end to a long conflict. Even the capital’s 5,000 prostitutes are caught up in troop movements, contemplating as a group “pulling up stakes and heading to City Point” for the offensive.