[CORYDON]

Your suggestion of Thomas Fleming's “A DISEASE IN THE PUBLIC MIND” is an exceptional choice as are the others you mention. Something however that is often not mentioned in great detail is the fact that some years before the firing on Fort Sumter, Civil War was already occurring along the dividing line of Missouri and at that point, the Kansas Territory between Kansas Jay-hawkers, Kansas Redlegs and, Missouri pro-southern guerrilla gangs. I won't go into further detail on this but I do suggest you need to include this earlier Civil (war) strife between Missouri slaveholders and eastern Abolitionists who were moving into the Kansas Territory at a rapid rate to keep Kansas slave-free as it was considering statehood, in your study.
I will also tell you that studying our Civil War can be extremely rewarding and Thomas Fleming's new book (mention before) is truly an eyeopening book.

[Pelham]

The Missouri and Kansas conflicts of the 1850s are important to include, but I don’t know a good book on the topic. It certainly is important when studying the run-up to the War, considering that ‘Potawatomi Brown’, John Brown, began his murderous career there.

Another forgotten precursor was the ‘Mormon War’ or ‘Utah War’ during Buchanan’s term- Buchanan sent the Army to put down a rebellion in Utah, but it became a moot issue when the Mormons decided to accept the Territorial Governor as the legitimate authority. And while this was going on South Carolina seceded and drove off a Ft Sumter resupply ship with cannon fire- Buchanan thought that secession was illegal, but didn’t believe that he had the authority to suppress a State’s action by force, unlike what he had done in the Utah Territory.