In “Sources and Acknowl­edg­ments” of *The Demon of Unrest*, the author dis­cuss­es the cre­ative process behind the book, empha­siz­ing the search for a com­pelling nar­ra­tive. He recounts how, dur­ing the onset of the COVID pan­dem­ic in ear­ly 2020, he began explor­ing the events that led to the Civ­il War, par­tic­u­lar­ly at Fort Sumter. The chaot­ic polit­i­cal cli­mate of the pan­dem­ic fueled his curios­i­ty about the ori­gins of the war, prompt­ing a detour from his usu­al research meth­ods, which were inter­rupt­ed by lim­it­ed access to archives due to safe­ty mea­sures.

Engag­ing with var­i­ous online resources, he dis­cov­ered *The War of the Rebel­lion: A Com­pi­la­tion of the Offi­cial Records of the Union and Con­fed­er­ate Armies*, which cap­ti­vat­ed him with its com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of pri­ma­ry doc­u­ments, allow­ing him to piece togeth­er a vivid account of Amer­i­ca’s strug­gle lead­ing to civ­il con­flict. His vis­it to Charleston post-pan­dem­ic fur­ther enriched his under­stand­ing, as he inter­act­ed direct­ly with his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments reveal­ing the stark real­i­ties of slav­ery, includ­ing a list of enslaved indi­vid­u­als and adver­tise­ments for slave auc­tions.

Uti­liz­ing resources from the Library of Con­gress, he exam­ined papers from key his­tor­i­cal fig­ures such as Maj. Robert Ander­son and oth­ers, while also mak­ing good use of dig­i­tal archives ded­i­cat­ed to Abra­ham Lin­col­n’s works. Notably, sec­ondary sources such as *Bat­tle Cry of Free­dom* by James M. McPher­son and *Team of Rivals* by Doris Kearns Good­win also played sig­nif­i­cant roles in shap­ing his nar­ra­tive.

The author express­es grat­i­tude toward var­i­ous con­trib­u­tors, includ­ing his wife and edi­tor, Aman­da Cook, whose insights helped refine the book from its ini­tial draft. He acknowl­edges the sup­port from pub­li­cists and friends who facil­i­tat­ed his jour­ney through the writ­ing process, ensur­ing the project stayed true to its vision. Through their col­lab­o­ra­tion, the book meta­mor­phosed into a fin­ished prod­uct, enhanced by a thought­ful design and mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, ensur­ing its reach to a wider audi­ence.

The author’s reflec­tions reveal not only his exten­sive research process but also the per­son­al con­nec­tions and inspi­ra­tions that shaped the final work, which is pep­pered with anec­dotes and insights from the past.