Fatal Glory: Narciso Lopez and the First Clandestine U.S. War Against Cuba - Softcover

"Had López’'s mid-nineteenth-century misadventures been better chronicled in more recent times they might have given pause or provided lessons to modern-day plotters in their efforts to oust the present Cuban government. Chaffin seeks to correct the historical oversight in this meticulously documented volume." —Miami Herald "In the late 1840s and early 1850s, filibustering expeditions based in the United States against Cuba, Nicaragua, and other parts of Latin America captured the American popular imagination. . . . None of the filibusterers was more famous than Narciso López. Fatal Glory is an outstanding study of López’s efforts to overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba between 1848 and 1851. After fleeing from an unsuccessful revolt in Cuba, López came to the United States and proceeded to organize four separate expeditions. Two were thwarted by United States government intervention before they departed, and two sailed and landed in Cuba but were quickly defeated by the Spanish army. . . . The inevitable outcome of the expeditions, however, was largely lost in the great excitement that López and his supporters created in the United States. . . . Tom Chaffin has done an exemplary job of integrating various related topics into his narrative. It is clearly a labor of love. . . . A model historical monograph."—Journal of American History
"Historians have for too long regarded López’s filibustering attempts in Cuba as driven by southern slaveholders. This beautifully written and exhaustively researched volume provides a valuable corrective to the literature....Chaffin’'s rich account rests on both U.S. and Cuban sources, and it fits easily into the broad scope of nineteenth-century political and diplomatic developments." —Civil War History

Tom Chaffin's other books include Giant's Causeway: Frederick Douglass's Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary, Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah and  Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire. His writing have also appeared in the New York Times, the Oxford American, Harper's, and other publications. He lives in Atlanta.