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Lincolns Sanctuary
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Book Synopsis Lincoln's Sanctuary by : Matthew Pinsker
Download or read book Lincoln's Sanctuary written by Matthew Pinsker and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a portrait of Abraham Lincoln's stay at a small cottage on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home during his presidency.
Book Synopsis Lincoln's Confidant by : Wayne C. Temple
Download or read book Lincoln's Confidant written by Wayne C. Temple and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the legendary Lincoln scholar Wayne C. Temple comes the long-awaited full-length biography of Noah Brooks, the influential Illinois journalist who championed Abraham Lincoln in Illinois state politics and became his almost daily companion at the White House. Best remembered as one of the president's few true intimates, Brooks was also a nationally recognized man of letters, who mingled with the likes of Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Temple draws on archives and papers long thought lost to re-create Brooks's colorful life and relationship with Lincoln. Brooks's closeness to the president made him privy to Lincoln's thoughts on everything from literature to spirituality. Their frank conversations contributed to the wealth of journalism and personal observations that would make Brooks's writings a much-quoted source for historians and biographers of Lincoln. A carefully researched and well-documented scholarly resource, Lincoln's Confidant is the story of an extraordinary friendship by one of the luminaries of Lincoln scholarship.
Book Synopsis Lincoln's Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, DC by : Kenneth J. Winkle
Download or read book Lincoln's Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, DC written by Kenneth J. Winkle and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-08-19 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stirring history of a president and a capital city on the front lines of war and freedom. In the late 1840s, Representative Abraham Lincoln resided at Mrs. Sprigg’s boardinghouse on Capitol Hill. Known as Abolition House, Mrs. Sprigg’s hosted lively dinner-table debates of antislavery politics by the congressional boarders. The unusually rapid turnover in the enslaved staff suggested that there were frequent escapes north to freedom from Abolition House, likely a cog in the underground railroad. These early years in Washington proved formative for Lincoln. In 1861, now in the White House, Lincoln could gaze out his office window and see the Confederate flag flying across the Potomac. Washington, DC, sat on the front lines of the Civil War. Vulnerable and insecure, the capital was rife with Confederate sympathizers. On the crossroads of slavery and freedom, the city was a refuge for thousands of contraband and fugitive slaves. The Lincoln administration took strict measures to tighten security and established camps to provide food, shelter, and medical care for contrabands. In 1863, a Freedman’s Village rose on the grounds of the Lee estate, where the Confederate flag once flew. The president and Mrs. Lincoln personally comforted the wounded troops who flooded wartime Washington. In 1862, Lincoln spent July 4 riding in a train of ambulances carrying casualties from the Peninsula Campaign to Washington hospitals. He saluted the “One-Legged Brigade” assembled outside the White House as “orators,” their wounds eloquent expressions of sacrifice and dedication. The administration built more than one hundred military hospitals to care for Union casualties. These are among the unforgettable scenes in Lincoln’s Citadel, a fresh, absorbing narrative history of Lincoln’s leadership in Civil War Washington. Here is the vivid story of how the Lincoln administration met the immense challenges the war posed to the city, transforming a vulnerable capital into a bastion for the Union.
Book Synopsis Lincoln in Lists by : Thomas R. Flagel
Download or read book Lincoln in Lists written by Thomas R. Flagel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than perhaps any other figure in Western civilization, save Jesus of Nazareth, and with so much material available on Lincoln, it can be difficult to sift through all the biographies and recollections to get at the essence of one of the great Americans of all time. In this book—both history and biography, informative as well as entertaining, meant to be read in whole or in bite-sized chunks—historian Thomas Flagel distills the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln in twenty-five annotated lists. Flagel’s lists present a cross-section of Lincoln’s life, career, and presidency: —Homes and jobs —Mentors, friends, and allies —Books and readings —Legal cases —Acts as an Illinois state representative and U.S. congressman —Best and worst days as president —Favorite sanctuaries in Washington, DC —Monuments, memorials, and historic sites —Greatest speeches and addresses —And more For uninitiated readers, these lists offer a quick but informative (and informed) entrée into Abraham Lincoln. For buffs and historians, the lists will be the starting point for debates and arguments. For everyone, Flagel’s annotated lists present an opportunity for readers to draw their own conclusions about Lincoln, based on the facts of his life. In these twenty-five lists, Flagel offers a unique lens through which to view our sixteenth president.
Book Synopsis Lincoln and the Natural Environment by : James Tackach
Download or read book Lincoln and the Natural Environment written by James Tackach and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking environmental biography of Abraham Lincoln, James Tackach maps Lincoln’s lifelong relationship with the natural world from his birth and boyhood on Midwestern farms through his political career and presidency dealing with the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War. Lincoln was born in a generation that grew up on farms but began to move to cities as industrialization transformed the American economy. Turning away from the outdoor, manual labor of his youth, he chose careers in law and politics but always found solace outside first on the prairies of Illinois and, later, at the woodsy presidential retreat. As Tackach shows, Lincoln relied on examples and metaphors from the natural world in his speeches and writings. As a member of the Whig Party Lincoln endorsed the Industrial Revolution, which transformed the nation’s economy and its physical, social, and cultural landscapes, and advocated for the creation of railroads, canals, roads, and bridges to facilitate growth and the distribution of products. But he and his party failed to take steps to protect the natural environment. Surveying the destruction of the environment in the mid-nineteenth century, Tackach outlines how some American writers, the first voices for protection and conservation, began to call attention to the results of deforestation and the overhunting of animals during Lincoln’s lifetime. As commander in chief during the Civil War, Lincoln approved a strategy that included significant infrastructure and environmental damage. In the South, where most of the battles occurred, Union troops burned cities and towns and destroyed plantations, farms, and natural landscapes. Tackach argues that, midway through his presidency, Lincoln seemed to sense that postwar Reconstruction would have to be spiritual, political, economic, and environmental in order to heal the nation’s wounds. He signed the Morrill Act, creating the land-grant colleges, and the environmentally progressive Yosemite Grant Act, which preserved thousands of acres of forest in California. The first scholar to thoroughly investigate Lincoln’s lifelong relationship with the natural environment, Tackach paints Lincoln’s personal and professional life against the backdrop of nineteenth-century American environmental history, issues, and writers, providing insights into contemporary environmental issues.
Book Synopsis Lincoln and Liberty by : Lucas E. Morel
Download or read book Lincoln and Liberty written by Lucas E. Morel and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Abraham Lincoln's death, generations of Americans have studied his life, presidency, and leadership, often remaking him into a figure suited to the needs and interests of their own time. This illuminating volume takes a different approach to his political thought and practice. Here, a distinguished group of contributors argue that Lincoln's relevance today is best expressed by rendering an accurate portrait of him in his own era. They seek to understand Lincoln as he understood himself and as he attempted to make his ideas clear to his contemporaries. What emerges is a portrait of a prudent leader who is driven to return the country to its original principles in order to conserve it. The contributors demonstrate that, far from advocating an expansion of government beyond its constitutional limits, Lincoln defended both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In his introduction, Justice Clarence Thomas discusses how Lincoln used the ideological and structural underpinnings of those founding documents to defeat slavery and secure the liberties that the Republic was established to protect. Other chapters reveal how Lincoln upheld the principle of limited government even as he employed unprecedented war powers. Featuring contributions from leading scholars such as Michael Burlingame, Allen C. Guelzo, Fred Kaplan, and Matthew Pinsker, this innovative collection presents fresh perspectives on Lincoln both as a political thinker and a practical politician. Taken together, these essays decisively demonstrate that the most iconic American president still has much to teach the modern-day student of politics.
Book Synopsis Reading With Lincoln by : Robert Bray
Download or read book Reading With Lincoln written by Robert Bray and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2010-09-03 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through extensive reading and reflection, Abraham Lincoln fashioned a mind as powerfully intellectual and superlatively communicative as that of any other American political leader. Reading with Lincoln uncovers the how of Lincoln’s inspiring rise to greatness by connecting the content of his reading to the story of his life. At the core of Lincoln’s success was his self-education, centered on his love of and appreciation for learning through books. From his early studies of grammar school handbooks and children’s classics to his interest in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the Bible during his White House years, what Lincoln read helped to define who he was as a person and as a politician. This unique study delves into the books, pamphlets, poetry, plays, and essays that influenced Lincoln’s thoughts and actions. Exploring in great depth and detail those readings that inspired the sixteenth president, author Robert Bray follows Lincoln’s progress closely, from the young teen composing letters for illiterate friends and neighbors to the politician who keenly employed what he read to advance his agenda. Bray analyzes Lincoln’s radical period in New Salem, during which he came under the influence of Anglo-American and French Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Paine, C. F. Volney, and Voltaire, and he investigates Lincoln’s appreciation of nineteenth-century lyric poetry, which he both read and wrote. Bray considers Lincoln’s fascination with science, mathematics, political economics, liberal social philosophy, theology, and the Bible, and devotes special attention to Lincoln’s enjoyment of American humor. While striving to arrive at an understanding of the role each subject played in the development of this remarkable leader, Bray also examines the connections and intertextual relations between what Lincoln read and how he wrote and spoke. This comprehensive and long-awaited book provides fresh insight into the self-made man from the wilderness of Illinois. Bray offers a new way to approach the mind of the political artist who used his natural talent, honed by years of rhetorical study and practice, to abolish slavery and end the Civil War.
Book Synopsis Lincoln's Melancholy by : Joshua Wolf Shenk
Download or read book Lincoln's Melancholy written by Joshua Wolf Shenk and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006-10-02 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A nuanced psychological portrait of Abraham Lincoln that finds his legendary political strengths rooted in his most personal struggles. Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded Lincoln's adult life, Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy reveals how this illness influenced both the President’s character and his leadership. Mired in personal suffering as a young man, Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health. Shenk draws on seven years of research from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of Lincoln’s unhappiness. In the process, Shenk discovers that the President’s coping strategies—among them, a rich sense of humor and a tendency toward quiet reflection—ultimately helped him to lead the nation through its greatest turmoil. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post Book World, Atlanta Journal-Constituion, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette As Featured on the History Channel documentary Lincoln “Fresh, fascinating, provocative.”—Sanford D. Horwitt, San Francisco Chronicle “Some extremely beautiful prose and fine political rhetoric and leaves one feeling close to Lincoln, a considerable accomplishment.”—Andrew Solomon, New York Magazine “A profoundly human and psychologically important examination of the melancholy that so pervaded Lincoln's life.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., author of An Unquiet Mind
Book Synopsis Lincoln's Greatest Journey by : Noah Andre Trudeau
Download or read book Lincoln's Greatest Journey written by Noah Andre Trudeau and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a New York Times–bestselling author, “a vivid account of Lincoln’s sixteen days at the front in Virginia” (James McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom). March 1865: The United States was at a crossroads and, truth be told, Abraham Lincoln was a sick man. I am very unwell, he confided to a close acquaintance. A vast and terrible civil war was winding down, leaving momentous questions for a war-weary president to address. A timely invitation from Gen. Ulysses S. Grant provided the impetus for an escape to City Point, Virginia, a journey from which Abraham Lincoln drew much more than he ever expected. This book offers the first comprehensive account of a momentous time in his presidency. Lincoln made the trip to escape the constant interruptions in the capital that were draining his vitality, and to make his personal amends for presiding over the most destructive war in American history in order to save the nation. Lincoln returned to Washington sixteen days later with a renewed sense of purpose, urgency, and direction that would fundamentally shape his second-term agenda. This was his longest break from the White House since he had taken office, and until now little has been known about it. Lincoln’s Greatest Journey represents the most extensively researched and detailed story of these decisive sixteen days at City Point, in a narrative laden with many previously unpublished accounts that fill in gaps and clear up misconceptions. A fresh, more complete picture of Lincoln emerges, set against a dramatically new narrative of what really happened during those last weeks of his life.
Book Synopsis A Finger in Lincoln's Brain by : E. Lawrence Abel
Download or read book A Finger in Lincoln's Brain written by E. Lawrence Abel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-01-16 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This intriguing book examines Lincoln's assassination from a behavioral and medical sciences perspective, providing new insights into everything from ballistics and forensics to the medical intervention to save his life, the autopsy results, his compromised embalming, and the final odyssey of his bodily remains. In this book, E. Lawrence Abel sheds much-needed light on the fascinating details surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln, including John Wilkes Booth's illness that turned him into an assassin, the medical treatment the president is alleged to have received after he was shot, and the significance of his funeral for the American public. The author provides an in-depth analysis of the science behind the assassination, a discussion of the medical care Lincoln received at the time he was shot and the treatment he would have received if he were shot today, and the impact of his death on his contemporaries and the American public. The book examines Lincoln's fatalism and his unbridled ambition in terms of empirical psychological science rather than the fanciful psychoanalytical explanations that often characterize Lincoln psychohistories. The medical chapters challenge the long-standing description of Lincoln's last hours and examine the debate about whether Lincoln's doctors inadvertently doomed him.
Book Synopsis Lincoln's Bold Lion by : James T. Huffstodt
Download or read book Lincoln's Bold Lion written by James T. Huffstodt and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2015-10-19 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Does]an excellent job portraying General Hardin’s life in the context of a changing America . . . a definitive biography of a forgotten hero” (Civil War News). Nominated for the Gilder Lehrman Prize, this is the first biography devoted to the life of a remarkable young man who, in the words of Civil War historian Ezra Warner, “embarked upon a combat career which has few parallels in the annals of the army for gallantry, wounds sustained, and the obscurity into which he had lapsed a generation before his death.” From Hardin’s childhood in Illinois, where a slave girl implanted in him a fear of ghosts, to his attendance at West Point, along with other future luminaries, to his service on the frontier,where he took particular note of the bearing of the Cheyenne, Hardin’s life reveals the progress of a century. Made Brigadier General at age twenty-seven, Hardin fought with distinction at Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Gettysburg, Grant’s Overland Campaign, and the July 1864 Rebel raid on Washington. He was wounded four times, nearly died on two occasions, and lost an arm during the war. On one occasion, he was ambushed on a road by Mosby’s Men, one of whom may have been Lincoln conspirator Lewis Paine. Hardin himself took part in the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln’s assassination. Though General Hardin’s mother skillfully played upon her friendship with the President and the First Lady to advance her son’s career, his gallantry and leadership in combat sufficed to earn him renown. Lincoln’s Bold Lion “restores the man’s rightful position as an American hero” (Chicago Daily Herald).
Book Synopsis Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns by : Ferenc Morton Szasz
Download or read book Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns written by Ferenc Morton Szasz and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2008-09-25 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the images of Robert Burns and Abraham Lincoln are recognized worldwide, yet few are aware of the connection between the two. In Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns: Connected Lives and Legends, author Ferenc Morton Szasz reveals how famed Scots poet Robert Burns—and Scotland in general—influenced the life and thought of one of the most beloved and important U.S. presidents and how the legends of the two men became intertwined after their deaths. This is the first extensive work to link the influence, philosophy, and artistry of these two larger-than-life figures. Lacking a major national poet of their own in the early nineteenth century, Americans in the fledgling frontier country ardently adopted the poignant verses and songs of Scotland’s Robert Burns. Lincoln, too, was fascinated by Scotland’s favorite son and enthusiastically quoted the Scottish bard from his teenage years to the end of his life. Szasz explores the ways in which Burns’s portrayal of the foibles of human nature, his scorn for religious hypocrisy, his plea for nonjudgmental tolerance, and his commitment to social equality helped shape Lincoln’s own philosophy of life. The volume also traces how Burns’s lyrics helped Lincoln develop his own powerful sense of oratorical rhythm, from his casual anecdotal stories to his major state addresses. Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns connects the poor-farm-boy upbringings, the quasi-deistic religious views, the shared senses of destiny, the extraordinary gifts for words, and the quests for social equality of two respected and beloved world figures. This book is enhanced by twelve illustrations and two appendixes, which include Burns poems Lincoln particularly admired and Lincoln writings especially admired in Scotland.
Download or read book Prologue written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Abraham Lincoln by : Michael Burlingame
Download or read book Abraham Lincoln written by Michael Burlingame and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 2028 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America's greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce current understanding of America's sixteenth president. Volume 1 covers Lincoln's early childhood, his experiences as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's life during his presidency and the Civil War, narrating in fascinating detail the crisis over Fort Sumter and Lincoln's own battles with relentless office seekers, hostile newspaper editors, and incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also offers new interpretations of Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd and the untimely deaths of two sons to disease. But through it all—his difficult childhood, his contentious political career, a fratricidal war, and tragic personal losses—Lincoln preserved a keen sense of humor and acquired a psychological maturity that proved to be the North's most valuable asset in winning the Civil War. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, this landmark publication establishes Burlingame as the most assiduous Lincoln biographer of recent memory and brings Lincoln alive to modern readers as never before.
Book Synopsis Lincoln on Trial by : Burrus M. Carnahan
Download or read book Lincoln on Trial written by Burrus M. Carnahan and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2010-02-12 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed Lincoln scholar examines the president’s treatment of Southern civilians during the Civil War, shedding new light on his wartime conduct. By twenty-first century standards, President Lincoln's adherence to the laws of war would be considered questionable. But could be condemned as a war criminal based on the accepted standards of his time? Lincoln’s critics, past and present, have not hesitated to make the charge, while his apologists defend his actions as reasonable and humane. In Lincoln on Trial, Burrus M. Carnahan examines Lincoln's leadership throughout the Civil War as he struggled to balance his own humanity against the demands of his generals. Carnahan specifically scrutinizes Lincoln's conduct toward Southerners in light of the international legal standards of his time as the president wrestled with issues such as bombardment of cities, collateral damage to civilians, seizure and destruction of property, forced relocation, and the slaughter of hostages. Carnahan investigates a wide range of historical materials from accounts of the Dahlgren raid to the voices of Southern civilians who bore the brunt of extensive wartime destruction. Through analysis of both historic and modern standards of behavior in times of war, a sobering yet sympathetic portrait of one of America's most revered presidents emerges.
Book Synopsis Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman by : Joseph R. Fornieri
Download or read book Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman written by Joseph R. Fornieri and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What constitutes Lincoln’s political greatness as a statesman? As a great leader, he saved the Union, presided over the end of slavery, and helped to pave the way for an interracial democracy. His great speeches provide enduring wisdom about human equality, democracy, free labor, and free society. Joseph R. Fornieri contends that Lincoln’s political genius is best understood in terms of a philosophical statesmanship that united greatness of thought and action, one that combined theory and practice. This philosophical statesmanship, Fornieri argues, can best be understood in terms of six dimensions of political leadership: wisdom, prudence, duty, magnanimity, rhetoric, and patriotism. Drawing on insights from history, politics, and philosophy, Fornieri tackles the question of how Lincoln’s statesmanship displayed each of these crucial elements. Providing an accessible framework for understanding Lincoln’s statesmanship, this thoughtful study examines the sixteenth president’s political leadership in terms of the traditional moral vision of statecraft as understood by epic political philosophers such as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Fornieri contends that Lincoln’s character is best understood in terms of Aquinas’s understanding of magnanimity or greatness of soul, the crowning virtue of statesmanship. True political greatness, as embodied by Lincoln, involves both humility and sacrificial service for the common good. The enduring wisdom and timeless teachings of these great thinkers, Fornieri shows, can lead to a deeper appreciation of statesmanship and of its embodiment in Abraham Lincoln. With the great philosophers and books of western civilization as his guide, Fornieri demonstrates the important contribution of normative political philosophy to an understanding of our sixteenth president. Informed by political theory that draws on the classics in revealing the timelessness of Lincoln’s example, his interdisciplinary study offers profound insights for anyone interested in the nature of leadership, statesmanship, political philosophy, political ethics, political history, and constitutional law. 2015 ISHS Superior Achievement Award
Book Synopsis Abraham and Mary Lincoln by : Kenneth J. Winkle
Download or read book Abraham and Mary Lincoln written by Kenneth J. Winkle and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s marriage has been characterized as discordant and tumultuous. In Abraham and Mary Lincoln, author Kenneth J. Winkle goes beyond the common image of the couple, illustrating that although the waters of the Lincoln household were far from calm, the Lincolns were above all a house united. Calling upon their own words and the reminiscences of family members and acquaintances, Winkle traces the Lincolns from their starkly contrasting childhoods, through their courtship and rise to power, to their years in the White House during the Civil War, ultimately revealing a dynamic love story set against the backdrop of the greatest peril the nation has ever seen. When the awkward but ambitious Lincoln landed Mary Todd, people were surprised by their seeming incompatibility. Lincoln, lacking in formal education and social graces, came from the world of hardscrabble farmers on the American frontier. Mary, by contrast, received years of schooling and came from an established, wealthy, slave-owning family. Yet despite the social gulf between them, these two formidable personalities forged a bond that proved unshakable during the years to come. Mary provided Lincoln with the perfect partner in ambition—one with connections, political instincts, and polish. For Mary, Lincoln was her “diamond in the rough,” a man whose ungainly appearance and background belied a political acumen to match her own. While each played their role in the marriage perfectly— Lincoln doggedly pursuing success and Mary hosting lavish political soirées—their partnership was not without contention. Mary—once described as “the wildcat of her age”—frequently expressed frustration with the limitations placed on her by Victorian social strictures, exhibiting behavior that sometimes led to public friction between the couple. Abraham’s work would at times keep him away from home for weeks, leaving Mary alone in Springfield. The true test of the Lincolns’ dedication to each other began in the White House, as personal tragedy struck their family and civil war erupted on American soil. The couple faced controversy and heartbreak as the death of their young son left Mary grief-stricken and dependent upon séances and spiritualists; as charges of disloyalty hounded the couple regarding Mary’s young sister, a Confederate widow; and as public demands grew strenuous that their son Robert join the war. The loss of all privacy and the constant threat of kidnapping and assassination took its toll on the entire family. Yet until a fateful night in the Ford Theatre in 1865, Abraham and Mary Lincoln stood firmly together—he as commander-in-chief during America’s gravest military crisis, and she as First Lady of a divided country that needed the White House to emerge as a respected symbol of national unity and power. Despite the challenges they faced, the Lincolns’ life together fully embodied the maxim engraved on their wedding bands: love is eternal. Abraham and Mary Lincoln is a testament to the power of a stormy union that held steady through the roughest of seas.
