How could a historian of the USnotfind Lincoln an endlessly fascinating figure? As a young(ish) university teacher, I jumped at the invitation to write a study of the 16th president, but didn’t expect it to win the coveted Lincoln Prize. When it did, in 2004, the community of American Lincoln scholars made me, a Welsh professor from Oxford University, doubly welcome. In several books I’ve examined Lincoln’s political skill, strategic ambition, and moral purposes. But he was more than a gifted pragmatist. His greater goal was to leave his nation stronger and a little closer to realizing the principles of equality laid out in the Declaration of Independence of 1776.
Lincoln’s religious faith, a puzzle to many, has been a central interest of mine. As a young man Lincoln was accused of infidelity; in maturity he made no religious profession. Yet he read and reread the Bible, attended church in Washington, reflected on God’s purposes, and shared ideas with ministers. White has written several studies of Lincoln, including a fine biography, but none surpasses this bright gem of a book. He explains why Lincoln considered his second inaugural address, delivered as the war ended, to be his greatest speech—a sermon rooted in faith. Believing the war to be God’s judgment on the whole nation for its complicity in the sin of slavery, he urged postwar charity to all. Fittingly, its text is paired with the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Memorial.
After four years of unspeakable horror and sacrifice on both sides, the Civil War was about to end. On March 4, 1865, at his Second Inaugural, President Lincoln did not offer the North the victory speech it yearned for, nor did he blame the South solely for the sin of slavery. Calling the whole nation to account, Lincoln offered a moral framework for peace and reconciliation. The speech was greeted with indifference, misunderstanding, and hostility by many in the Union. But it was a great work, the victorious culmination of Lincoln's own lifelong struggle with the issue of slavery, and…
I’ve been writing books about Abraham Lincoln for 15 years. I also have two daughters, and I spend a lot of time at night telling bedtime stories. A couple of years ago, I decided to combine these two areas of my life by writing a Lincoln book for kids. But I didn’t want it to be another run-of-the-mill history book. So, I developed a story about a girl who travels back in time and meets a young Abe. Along the way, she learns a lot about his life. I like to tell people that everything about it is historically accurate . . . except the time travel!
In this fictional story about the Battle of Gettysburg, two 11-year-old buglers (one from the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry and the other from 11th Mississippi) meet in the woods and share some moments in conversation away from the din of the fighting.
The story helps young readers reflect on the common humanity and suffering of the soldiers on both sides during the Civil War. In elegant prose and beautiful pictures it humanizes the experiences, fears, and uncertainties faced by these men and boys (and their families).
I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War my entire life. As a boy, I met a man in my Ohio hometown who spent his own youth visiting with the last, wrinkled survivors of the Union armies. His memories at once made the Civil War real and immediate for me. I soon devoured every book and walked every battlefield I could find. After earning an undergraduate degree in Civil War Studies at Gettysburg College, I completed my Ph.D. at Yale. I have authored six books on the conflict—one of which was a runner-up for the Pulitzer in History—and teach courses on the Civil War at Sam Houston State University.
Before the past becomes history, it is lived in real-time by real people striving to understand it. From an avalanche of firsthand accounts, Hodes relates how Americans still reeling from civil war made sense of an unprecedented assassination. (Hint: they did so in a variety of ways, from expressions of grief and glee, from feelings of rage and resignation, from the margins of scrapbook pages to homespun mourning garb.) Hodes’ close and clever reading of sources recovers the anarchy and confusion of the Civil War’s aftermath.
How did individual Americans respond to the shock of President Lincoln's assassination? Diaries, letters, and intimate writings reveal a complicated, untold story. Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2015, and a long list finalist for the National Book Award "[A] lyrical and important new study."-Jill Lepore, New York Times Book Review "Richly detailed and exquisitely written, . . . it immerses the readers in the world of 1865."-Anne Sarah Rubin, Journal of American History
The news of Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865, just days after Confederate surrender, astounded the war-weary…
I’ve written ten books, four of them prize-winning best sellers, but this is my first book on the Civil War. Fortunately, it’s been generously received. The Wall Street Journal declared it “an epic story” and “rattling good history,” while Pulitzer Prize-winning James M. McPherson declared it “the fullest and best history of the Vicksburg campaign.“ Another Pulitzer receipient, David Blight, praised it for its “sizzling and persuasive prose. Miller has found the way,” he said, “to write both military and emancipation history in one profound package.”
Published in 1898 and now largely forgotten, this book is the only oral history we have of Grant. Garland, a substantial nineteenth-century literary figure, spent two years locating and interviewing people who knew Grant—generals and privates, family and neighbors in St. Louis and Galena, Illinois. Grant was a self-enclosed man, but he opened up to those he knew and trusted. It would be impossible to write a reliable life study of him without consulting Garland’s superb biography, or reading the transcripts of his interviews, which can be found in his papers at the University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial Library.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and…
One of the most influential books of the past fifty years, Team of Rivals is Pulitzer Prize–winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s modern classic about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, his unlikely presidency, and his cabinet of former political foes.
Winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize and the inspiration for the Oscar Award winning–film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, directed by Steven Spielberg, and written by Tony Kushner.
On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago.…
I write historical fiction about real-life characters, some relatively obscure, some very well known. One of my main goals is to avoid the stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions that have gathered around historical figures. At the same time, I strive to remain true to known historical facts and to the mores of the times in which my characters lived. I use both primary sources—letters, newspapers, diaries, wills, and so forth—and modern historical research to bring my characters to life.
This collection of essays focuses on a variety of topics, including Mary's relationships, her siblings, her life at the only home she and her husband owned together, her travels, her fashion sense, her psyche, her depiction in photographs and illustrations, and her portrayal in fiction. Although these essays are relatively short, they're crammed full of interesting details. You can read the book straight through or (as I prefer) dip in and out of it at your leisure.
Mary Lincoln is a lightning rod for controversy. Stories reveal widely different interpretations, and it is impossible to write a definitive version of her life that will suit everyone. The thirteen engaging essays in this collection introduce Mary Lincoln's complex nature and show how she is viewed today. The authors' explanations of her personal and private image stem from a variety of backgrounds, and through these lenses-history, theater, graphic arts, and psychiatry-they present their latest research and assessments. Here they reveal the effects of familial culture and society on her life and give a broader assessment of Mary Lincoln as…
I'm a former novelist who now writes historical narrative nonfiction, mainly about American cities and the people who give them life. Each book focuses on an important turning point in the history of a specific metropolis (I've written about Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), often when the city goes from being a minor backwater to being someplace of significance. And I try to tell this story through the lives of real individuals who help to make that transformation happen. My goal is to use the skills I developed as a fiction writer to create historical narratives that maintain strict standards of scholarship while being as compelling and compulsively readable as novels.
I find few dramas in history more intriguing than that of Abraham Lincoln, and it's sobering to realize just how close we came to missing his entire second act.
The so-called Baltimore Plot – a conspiracy to assassinate the newly elected president while en route to his first inauguration – has been written about before, but never as vividly and novelistically as in Daniel Stashower's The Hour of Peril. In telling this riveting story, Stashower brings into the spotlight a little-known figure named Kate Warne, perhaps the country's first female private detective.
Tough-minded and self-possessed beyond her years, Warne assists the celebrated Allan Pinkerton in a tense, nerve-racking effort to spirit the President-elect safely to Washington DC – and into arguably the most important role in American history.
"It's history that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller." ―Harlan Coben
Daniel Stashower, the two-time Edgar award–winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, uncovers the riveting true story of the "Baltimore Plot," an audacious conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War in THE HOUR OF PERIL.
In February of 1861, just days before he assumed the presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a "clear and fully-matured" threat of assassination as he traveled by train from Springfield to Washington for his inauguration. Over a period of thirteen days the legendary detective Allan Pinkerton worked feverishly to detect and thwart…
From the age of ten, I became enthralled with Abraham Lincoln. The story of his life captured my imagination. I had to know more about him. Through the decades I searched out little-known stories, eyewitness accounts, and letters thought lost. Becoming fascinated how he went from an almost illiterate young man to becoming the person we know from history; I went to the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield Illinois and to where he lived in New Salem to do additional research. After that, I started writing a three-year labor of love: my own Lincoln book, primarily focusing on one key period of his life.
A carefully researched portrait of Lincoln’s inner world and private life is explored by the author in a brilliant book. The Lincoln that emerges from this volume is someone whose marriage to Mary Todd was, according to William Herndon, “a burning scorching hell.” The inner turmoil Lincoln suffered during his life would have broken a lesser man. To fully appreciate Lincoln, this is a must-read.
Published to a flurry of praise--and consternation--from Lincoln scholars, Burlingame's book takes a hard and unsentimental look at, among other things, Abraham Lincoln's excruciating yet fruitful midlife crisis, his marriage to a dishonest woman who often embarrassed and sometimes physically abused him, his estrangement from his father, his explosive temper, and his aversion to women.
The older I get, the more fascinated I am with family history and the way certain traits or talents get passed down – or not. Unfortunately, we don’t always know much about our own ancestors. Maybe that’s why I appreciate a multigenerational story that shows all the forms a young person’s “inheritance” can take, whether money, looks, a special skill or talent, or even a disease. And because I’ve always loved a good mystery, I enjoy books where a young person seeks to uncover a family secret. Finally, now that I’m on the older side of the generations, I appreciate a book that portrays older family members realistically and with respect.
This book has several of my all-time favorite story elements.
First, it’s historical fiction based on an impressive but long-overlooked female pioneer: Kate Warne, the first woman Pinkerton detective.
Second, it has both a high-stakes political story as the characters try to protect the president of the United States from assassination and a high-stakes personal story, as Nell Warne (Kate’s fictional niece) tries to uncover the secret of her father’s death. Did he really kill his own brother? Nell refuses to believe it.
Third, Nell is a funny, spit-fire narrator. And finally, there are secret codes for the reader to solve!
Eleven-year-old Nell Warne arrives on her aunt's doorstep lugging a heavy sack of sorrows. If her Aunt Kate rejects her, it's the miserable Home for the Friendless.
Luckily, canny Nell makes herself indispensable to Aunt Kate...and not just by helping out with household chores. For Aunt Kate is the first-ever female detective employed by the legendary Pinkerton Detective Agency. And Nell has a knack for the kind of close listening and bold action that made Pinkerton detectives famous in Civil War-era America. With huge, nation-changing events simmering in the background, Nell uses skills new and old to uncover truths about…
I got my first job as a professor of history in 1972 in Springfield, Illinois, at a new university there. What can you do in Springfield exceptwork on Lincoln? The more I read, the more intrigued I became. Lincoln draws you in. His lively mind and always well-written letters, along with his brilliant and memorable speeches, are endlessly fascinating. He also had genuine integrity as a human being and as a leader in our greatest crisis as a country. It is hard not to be inspired by Abraham Lincoln.
Donald’s one-volume biography of Lincoln remains the standard in the field. I knew David Donald and found him always generous. From his perch at Harvard, Donald dominated the Lincoln field for many decades. His biography of Lincoln stands head and shoulders above a host of more recent studies. In fact, it surprises me people keep writing biographies of Lincoln that go over the same ground repeatedly. Donald brings Lincoln alive with the authority that comes from a lifetime of reflection and writing on the Civil War and our greatest president.
A masterful work by Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Herbert Donald, Lincoln is a stunning portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency.
Donald brilliantly depicts Lincoln’s gradual ascent from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the ever-expanding political circles in Illinois, and finally to the presidency of a country divided by civil war. Donald goes beyond biography, illuminating the gradual development of Lincoln’s character, chronicling his tremendous capacity for evolution and growth, thus illustrating what made it possible for a man so inexperienced and so unprepared for the presidency to become a great moral leader. In the most troubled of times,…
