who wrote the best biography of abraham lincoln

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The 15 Best Books on President Abraham Lincoln

Essential books on abraham lincoln.

There are countless books on Abraham Lincoln, and it comes with good reason, aside from being elected America’s sixteenth President (1861-1865), he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy and preserved the Union while serving as Commander-in-Chief amidst a brutal Civil War.

“Of our political revolution of ’76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth,” Lincoln remarked. “In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.”

In order to get to the bottom of what inspired one of history’s most consequential figures to the heights of societal contribution, we’ve compiled a list of the 15 best books on Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

who wrote the best biography of abraham lincoln

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, here was a man who led the country out of slavery and preserved a shattered Union – in short, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

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. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln’s mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation’s history.

Lincoln at Gettysburg by Gary Wills

The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead he gave the whole nation “a new birth of freedom” in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece.

By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.

Lincoln’s Sword by Douglas L. Wilson

Widely considered in his own time as a genial but provincial lightweight who was out of place in the presidency, Abraham Lincoln astonished his allies and confounded his adversaries by producing a series of speeches and public letters so provocative that they helped revolutionize public opinion on such critical issues as civil liberties, the use of black soldiers, and the emancipation of slaves. This is a brilliant and unprecedented examination of how Lincoln used the power of words to not only build his political career but to keep the country united during the Civil War.

The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner

Selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review , this landmark work gives us a definitive account of Lincoln’s lifelong engagement with the nation’s critical issue: American slavery. A master historian, Eric Foner draws Lincoln and the broader history of the period into perfect balance. We see Lincoln, a pragmatic politician grounded in principle, deftly navigating the dynamic politics of antislavery, secession, and civil war. Lincoln’s greatness emerges from his capacity for moral and political growth.

Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer

As a divided nation plunges into the deepest crisis in its history, Abraham Lincoln boards a train for Washington and his inauguration – an inauguration Southerners have vowed to prevent. Lincoln on the Verge charts these pivotal thirteen days of travel, as Lincoln discovers his power, speaks directly to the public, and sees his country up close.

Drawing on new research, this riveting account reveals the president-elect as a work in progress, showing him on the verge of greatness, as he foils an assassination attempt, forges an unbreakable bond with the American people, and overcomes formidable obstacles in order to take his oath of office.

A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White

Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides a portrait of Lincoln’s personal, political, and moral evolution.

White shows us Lincoln as a man who would leave a trail of thoughts in his wake, jotting ideas on scraps of paper and filing them in his top hat or the bottom drawer of his desk; a country lawyer who asked questions in order to figure out his own thinking on an issue, as much as to argue the case; a hands-on commander in chief who, as soldiers and sailors watched in amazement, commandeered a boat and ordered an attack on Confederate shore batteries at the tip of the Virginia peninsula; a man who struggled with the immorality of slavery and as president acted publicly and privately to outlaw it forever; and finally, a president involved in a religious odyssey who wrote, for his own eyes only, a profound meditation on “the will of God” in the Civil War that would become the basis of his finest address.

Most enlightening, the man who comes into focus in this gem among books on Abraham Lincoln is a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, and unafraid to “think anew and act anew.”

Tried by War by James M. McPherson

As we celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, this study by preeminent, bestselling Civil War historian James M. McPherson provides a rare, fresh take on one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. Tried by War offers a revelatory (and timely) portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. Suspenseful and inspiring, this is the story of how Lincoln, with almost no previous military experience before entering the White House, assumed the powers associated with the role of Commander in Chief, and through his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union.

Honor’s Voice by Douglas L. Wilson

Abraham Lincoln’s remarkable emergence from the rural Midwest and his rise to the presidency have been the stuff of romance and legend. But as Douglas L. Wilson shows us in Honor’s Voice, Lincoln’s transformation was not one long triumphal march, but a process that was more than once seriously derailed. There were times, in his journey from storekeeper and mill operator to lawyer and member of the Illinois state legislature, when Lincoln lost his nerve and self-confidence – on at least two occasions he became so despondent as to appear suicidal – and when his acute emotional vulnerabilities were exposed.

Focusing on the crucial years between 1831 and 1842, Wilson’s skillful analysis of the testimonies and writings of Lincoln’s contemporaries reveals the individual behind the legends. We see Lincoln as a boy: not the dutiful son studying by firelight, but the stubborn rebel determined to make something of himself. We see him as a young man: not the ascendant statesman, but the canny local politician who was renowned for his talents in wrestling and storytelling (as well as for his extensive store of off-color jokes).

Wilson also reconstructs Lincoln’s frequently anguished personal life: his religious skepticism, recurrent bouts of depression, and difficult relationships with women – from Ann Rutledge to Mary Owens to Mary Todd.

Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood

No other narrative account of Abraham Lincoln’s life has inspired such widespread and lasting acclaim as Charnwood’s Abraham Lincoln: A Biography . Written by a native of England and originally published in 1916, the biography is a rare blend of beautiful prose and profound historical insight. Charnwood’s study of Lincoln’s statesmanship introduced generations of Americans to the life and politics of Lincoln and the author’s observations are so comprehensive and well-supported that any serious study of Lincoln must respond to his conclusions.

Lincoln’s Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk

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. Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health from the time he was a young man. Shenk draws from historical records, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of his unhappiness. In the process, he 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.

Lincoln at Cooper Union by Harold Holzer

This favorite among books on Abraham Lincoln explores his most influential and widely reported pre-presidential address – an extraordinary appeal by the western politician to the eastern elite that propelled him toward the Republican nomination for president. Delivered in New York in February 1860, the Cooper Union speech dispelled doubts about Lincoln’s suitability for the presidency and reassured conservatives of his moderation while reaffirming his opposition to slavery to Republican progressives.

Award-winning Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer places Lincoln and his speech in the context of the times – an era of racism, politicized journalism, and public oratory as entertainment – and shows how the candidate framed the speech as an opportunity to continue his famous “debates” with his archrival Democrat Stephen A. Douglas on the question of slavery.

Holzer describes the enormous risk Lincoln took by appearing in New York, where he exposed himself to the country’s most critical audience and took on Republican Senator William Henry Seward of New York, the front runner, in his own backyard. Then he recounts a brilliant and innovative public relations campaign, as Lincoln took the speech “on the road” in his successful quest for the presidency.

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years by Carl Sandberg

Originally published in six volumes, Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln was called “the greatest historical biography of our generation.” Sandburg distilled this work into one volume that became one of the definitive books on Abraham Lincoln.

We Are Lincoln Men by David Herbert Donald

Though Abraham Lincoln had hundreds of acquaintances and dozens of admirers, he had almost no intimate friends. Behind his mask of affability and endless stream of humorous anecdotes, he maintained an inviolate reserve that only a few were ever able to penetrate.

Professor Donald’s remarkable book offers a fresh way of looking at Abraham Lincoln, both as a man who needed friendship and as a leader who understood the importance of friendship in the management of men. Donald penetrates Lincoln’s mysterious reserve to offer a new picture of the president’s inner life and to explain his unsurpassed political skills.

The Lincolns: Portraits of a Marriage by Daniel Mark

Although the private lives of political couples have in our era become front-page news, the true story of this extraordinary and tragic first family has never been fully told. The Lincolns eclipses earlier accounts with riveting new information that makes husband and wife, president and first lady, come alive in all their proud accomplishments and earthy humanity.

Award-winning biographer and poet Daniel Mark Epstein gives a fresh close-up view of the couple’s life in Springfield, Illinois (of their twenty-two years of marriage, all but six were spent there), and dramatizes with stunning immediacy how the Lincolns’ ascent to the White House brought both dazzling power and the slow, secret unraveling of the couple’s unique bond.

If you enjoyed this guide to essential books on Abraham Lincoln, be sure to check out our list of The 10 Best Books on President George Washington !

Christian Theology Book News and Reviews

Ten Best Abraham Lincoln Biographies

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of Lincoln biographies ? Don’t know where to start ?

Abraham Lincoln books far outnumber those about any other US president. Here are ten of the best Lincoln biographies …

1. Lincoln by David Herbert Donald.

Many critics agree that if you are only going to read one Abraham Lincoln biography this is the one to read…

When and Where was Abraham Lincoln born?

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Larue County, Kentucky

How many books about Abraham Lincoln have been published?

Over 16,000 books about Lincoln have been published, as of May 2021, including over 125 books on his assassination. This number is larger than the number of books written about any other person in U.S. history.

To What Political Party did Lincoln belong?

Although Lincoln belonged to the Whig Party early in his career, he ran for President as a Republican, and he is best known for his identification with the Republican Party.

Abraham Lincoln Biographies NEXT BOOK >>>>>>

UPDATED January 2024 – To clean up formatting issues.

Richard Middleton - Abraham's Silence [Feature Review]

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History Books » American History » Books on American Presidents

The best books on abraham lincoln, recommended by ted widmer.

He came from humble beginnings and never went to high school. Going into the presidency, he had limited political experience and lacked business, legislative and military achievements. The one thing he did not lack was a moral compass, says historian and author Ted Widmer . He picks the best books on the ups and downs and Shakespearean-style plot twists that were the life of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States.

Interview by Eve Gerber

Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer

Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words by Douglas L Wilson

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America by Garry Wills

Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory by Harold Holzer

They Knew Lincoln by John E Washington

1 Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer

2 lincoln's sword: the presidency and the power of words by douglas l wilson, 3 lincoln at gettysburg: the words that remade america by garry wills, 4 emancipating lincoln: the proclamation in text, context, and memory by harold holzer, 5 they knew lincoln by john e washington.

T here are more than 16,000 books about Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president. You’ve agreed to choose the best reading about Old Abe and I insisted that we discuss your thrilling Lincoln on the Verge among the five. Before we hit the books, please introduce our international audience to Abraham Lincoln.

His surprising literary capacity, which few knew about when they voted for him, was key to the impact he had. As president, he delivered extraordinary public addresses that are Shakespearian in some ways and biblical in other ways.

He’s emotionally interesting. Abraham Lincoln has more highs and lows than perhaps any other president. He’s very strong, but vulnerable also. That makes him an attractive central figure for a history book. And he’s tragically struck down at the moment of his greatest triumph, immediately after winning the Civil War . That seems almost like a plot twist out of Shakespeare . So he continues to fascinate.

When Abraham Lincoln ran for president in 1860, his supporters highlighted his bootstraps biography. His rise from a log cabin in Kentucky to the White House is astonishing. What are those basic biographical facts?

Your riveting book, Lincoln on the Verge, focuses on Abraham Lincoln at the precipice of his presidency. Please tell us about the book and the importance of that period you write about.

It’s a story about Abraham Lincoln’s 13-day train trip to his inauguration. We tend to have a static image of Lincoln, posed in a photograph or standing stiffly in a daguerreotype. But he was a man of action. I wanted to show him moving.

Along his train trip to Washington, Lincoln is meeting thousands of people every day. He’s improving his ability to sway people with a speech. Trying to keep the country together was physical as well as intellectual work. He was shaking tens of thousands of hands to keep America from falling apart. It was a physical ordeal but one that he was well-qualified for. We don’t think of Abraham Lincoln as a young man, but he had just turned 52 and he was still vigorous.

“There’s so much to admire about Abraham Lincoln”

This journey also shows America in all of its different shadings. It’s a country that is different, not only between North and South, but between the northern, southern, western and eastern parts of individual states. Southern Ohio is really different from Northern Ohio. Pennsylvania is very diverse. Following Lincoln on this trip through America allows me to show the complexity of the country in the nineteenth century.

America is clearly complicated in 2021 too. Reading about the dramatic differences between nineteenth century Americans, from one region to the next, still resonates today.

One of the things that made the book so gripping for me is how efficiently and effectively you explained what a dangerous moment it was for America’s democracy. Can you encapsulate that aspect of the book?

That too felt resonant to me because of all the upheaval we passed through in 2020. Democracy was not working well in 1860, in DC and around the world. The federal government wasn’t very effective and the lame duck president, James Buchanan, was lame in every way. He was imbecilic in meetings. Southern slave interests had controlled the US government almost without exception since 1789. The vast majority of free people in this huge and complicated country did not want to be governed by slaveowners and their representatives in Washington.

In Congress, disagreements boiled over, resulting in abolitionist Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner nearly being paralyzed after he was brutally beaten by a South Carolinian congressman. Congress was not functioning. There was barely any compromise or negotiation.

1860 is really the end of an era. It’s the failure of the first chapter of American history . They tried a form of democracy from 1789 to 1860. When Lincoln was elected, half the country wouldn’t accept it and so they seceded. That was a sign of an inconsistent commitment to democracy on their part.

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Lincoln had gargantuan challenges. It was up to him to reunite the country. But if he won the war by just crushing the South in a bloodbath, he couldn’t have brought the country back together and it would have been far harder for the country to function as a democracy again. So, he wants to win by persuading all of the people that democracy is worth the gargantuan effort to preserve the union.

Around the world, people have their eye on the U.S. because democracy is failing all over. Germany’s 1848 revolution has failed. In France, likewise, a revolution in 1848 has failed. In Italy , popular uprisings were faltering. So, if American democracy had completely collapsed, it could’ve been the final nail in the coffin for democracy. If Lincoln had failed, democracy might have been seen as just another strange utopian movement.

One of your recommended books is about the strength that made Abraham Lincoln such an effective president. Tell us about Lincoln’s Sword by historian Douglas Wilson.

Douglas Wilson is a superb Lincoln scholar, based at Knox College in Illinois. He’s an extremely close reader of Lincoln. Lincoln’s words are very important because they are kind of scripture for Americans. Sometimes the words are hard to pin down because three or four people hearing a Lincoln speech might each write them down differently. Douglas Wilson meticulously verifies every word spoken and helps us to understand Lincoln’s writing process. With all of the most famous Lincoln speeches, Wilson tells us why the speech needed to be given, the process of writing the speech, and the various iterations of the speech. His intense literary focus is exciting. Every time I read Douglas Wilson’s work, I feel re-energized by Lincoln’s words.

According to Richard Norton Smith, Wilson “reconstructs the man by deconstructing his words.” What does Abraham Lincoln’s writing reveal about him?

That leads us to a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Garry Wills about one of Lincoln’s most powerful speeches, delivered in 1863 at the dedication of a cemetery for war dead. Tell us about Lincoln at Gettysburg.

It’s a wonderful book that concentrates all of the author’s formidable erudition on a single short speech. The Gettysburg Address is only 272 words. It probably took him three minutes to say. Wills makes the moment crackle with electricity. He explains how Lincoln wrote the address, on the way to Gettysburg. He deconstructs the speech itself and contextualizes it. All of American history was pivoting, in these three minutes, from a states-based way of thinking about our society to a nation-based way of thinking. In this speech, Lincoln re-dedicated the United States to citizenship for all of its people. Up until this point, African-Americans were largely excluded from citizenship. In this speech, Wills shows Lincoln is realigning the stars of our country to make us a federal union that is stronger than the states and dedicated to the rights of all of citizens, including African-Americans. It was a big step forward.

The phrase from those 272 words that has resounded ever since is “a new birth of freedom.” What does that phrase mean?

Next is Harold Holzer’s Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context and Memory . The Emancipation Proclamation declared that, as of New Year’s Day of 1863, enslaved people in the rebelling states would be free “thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

It’s hard for me to pick a single Harold Holzer book because there are so many, and they’re all so good. Emancipating Lincoln is very cogent and relatively short. Three chapters from three talks he gave at Harvard, about what made the Emancipation Proclamation such a remarkable document. The Emancipation Proclamation had more of an impact on policy and law than Lincoln’s speeches, which are far more familiar to students of history.

“His surprising literary capacity…was key to the impact he had”

And Holzer is also restoring how hard it was for Lincoln to do that. That is important because we sometimes take him for granted, or worse, take potshots at him. Recently statues of him have been torn down and his name has been stripped from public schools. It is possible to find imperfect things that were not racially sensitive to our pitch-perfect ears. But what Harold Holzer brilliantly demonstrated is that emancipation was politically difficult to achieve, and had a huge impact, as African-Americans, in particular, understood. It’s a beautiful small book that restores Lincoln to what was probably his most important role, the role of the emancipator, the man who ended slavery.

In his introduction, Holzer casts Emancipating Lincoln as a reply to “harsh revisionist scholarship” that stripped Lincoln of credit for abolition and “the new birth of freedom” he called for at Gettysburg. Revisionism, needless to say, is nothing new. One of the statues you’re referring to was across the river from me in Boston. The only text my middle schooler receives, in a social studies class focused on 1860 onwards, casts Lincoln as a cynical politician who was adamantly opposed to equal rights for Black Americans. How and why has Lincoln’s reputation risen and fallen in the 158 years since he signed the Emancipation Proclamation?

That statue was built after Lincoln died; he had nothing to do with it. It’s troubling in many ways, the body language is wrong but, still, we should proceed cautiously, and listen to the voices of Lincoln’s time.

Finally, please tell me about the last Abraham Lincoln book on your list, John E. Washington’s They Knew Lincoln.

It’s a great book and an unusual book, first published in 1942 by an African American teacher who grew up in the shadow of the Capitol. The book was recently republished with an excellent introduction by historian Kate Masur. John E. Washington gathered a lot of fantastic oral history and documents to tell the untold story of the African Americans who knew Lincoln.

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Black Americans from many walks of life came into contact with Lincoln. There were African Americans working in the White House. He was friendly with a young man named William Johnson who worked in the Treasury Department. His barber back in Illinois, William De Fleurville, was born in Haiti and they knew one another well. The stories in this book deepen our understanding of Lincoln and his presidency. It wasn’t just white men in blue uniforms; there were many African Americans playing important roles behind the scenes.

By reconstructing the lives of the African American people who knew Lincoln is Washington originating social history of the sort that became popular in the 1960s?

I’m sure we could find earlier examples of social history. For instance, there are really interesting books written about the experience of average soldiers in the American Revolution. But despite the efforts of historians like W.E.B. Dubois, there had not been enough work focused on the African Americans during the civil war. This book helps to fix that imbalance and shows how much Lincoln’s presidency depended on the aid he received from others in his extended household.

Last question: As you pointed out earlier, like the thirteen days you wrote about in Lincoln on the Verge , the United States just passed through a period between presidencies when democracy was under great strain. What lessons does Lincoln’s life offer about how the present president, Joe Biden , can deal with the divisions in America? What lessons does Lincoln’s life offer for all leaders?

There’s a great lesson to be learned from Lincoln’s efforts to speak to all Americans. Lincoln always takes pains to speak to the South. He always was striving to “bind up the nation’s wounds,” as he said in the second inaugural. To survive, the United States needs presidents who are focused on the entire country, not just the party or interest groups that elect them. I’m encouraged that President Biden has been that way so far.

Lincoln also provides an example of action. Although he was a little slow coming out of the box, when the South attacked Fort Sumter, he responded with alacrity, raised the Northern Army and ramped up an overwhelming military response. While leading the war, he signed the Morrill Act in 1862, which expanded our public education system with land grant colleges. He signed the Homestead Act, which helped immigrants and ultimately freed slaves start new communities in the West. He helped the railroad and telegraph stretch across the country. He did not hesitate in using the powers of the presidency to act boldly and push actions through Congress that he believed would help Americans. That has also been true of Joe Biden to date.

So far, Biden’s combination of unifying rhetoric and focused action has been impressive and yes, Lincolnian.

February 12, 2021

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Edward (Ted) Ladd Widmer is a historian, author and librarian who served as speechwriter in the Clinton White House. He is a professor at Macaulay Honors College, part of City University of New York.

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The Best Books on President Lincoln

Which of the approximately 15,000 books written on President Lincoln should you read? In honor of our greatest leader Allen Barra picks the best reads.

Allen Barra

Matthew Brady/Buyenlarge/Getty

Two years ago, Paul Tetreault, director of Ford’s Theater in Washington, declared that there are more books written about Abraham Lincoln than any other person than Jesus Christ. The estimate then was over 15,000, nearly half of which were included in a tower of books to honor Abe . This makes the life and legacy of our 16th president intimidating to the newcomer, but here’s ten nonfiction works and one novel that will guide the novice through the halls of Lincoln lit.

Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood (1916)

Godfrey Rathbone Benson, the first Baron Charnwood, was an Oxford educated philosopher, politician (both in the House of Commons and as Mayor of Lichfield) and historian whose biographies on both Lincoln (1916) and Theodore Roosevelt (1923) offer a foreign perspective of our greatest president: “When an English writer tells again this tale, which has been well told already and in which there can remain no important new facts to disclose, he must endeavor to make clear to Englishmen circumstances and conditions which are familiar to Americans.” In other words, Charnwood tells the story as if it had not been told before. This makes it an ideal beginning place for American readers nearly a hundred years after its publication. Available in several paperback editions and e-book.

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills (1993)

A Pulitzer Prize-winning account by our greatest political writer of how Lincoln wrote the 272 words that has become our country’s most important document since the writings of the Founding Fathers. No other work explains why the Gettysburg Address is the linchpin of Lincoln’s political thought and how it has affected American politics ever since.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald (1995)

Generally regarded by aficionados as one of if not the best single-volume biography of Lincoln. Donald, who died in 2009, was praised by Eric Foner (professor of history at Columbia and author of The Fiery Trial; Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery ) for “Avoiding the two pitfalls that people fall into. One is just hagiography—you know [Lincoln] was born with a pen in his hand ready to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, and the other is the opposite, of course, [Lincoln was] just a racist or didn’t really care about slavery at all. Donald navigates between them.”

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (2003) and Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (2008) by James M. McPherson

Though it is not a biography of Lincoln, Battle Cry of Freedom is one of the best books about how Lincoln handled the crises of the War, from military to political to social situations. Doris Kearns Goodwin recommended this book on NPR a few years ago, saying that McPherson “is such a narrative genius …what he’s done is to mix together the battles, Lincoln’s leadership, the home front, the finances, the Cabinet, all together, but it drives forward as a story, and you don’t know until finally, perhaps, Atlanta, whether the North is really going to win this war.”

In Tried by War , McPherson maintains that Lincoln’s role as Commander in Chief has been underexamined.; he argues, convincingly, that the President’s violation of civil liberties was not so great as many actions taken by later chief executives in less critical circumstances. His operational device to his commanders was often perceptive—he seemed to have a firmer grasp of grand strategy than some of his generals, particularly McClellan. Though Lincoln was an amateur on the subject of war, McPherson believes he was our greatest war leader.

Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President by Harold Holzer (2005) and Emancipating Lincoln—The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (2012) by Harold Holzer

Holzer, perhaps our greatest contemporary Lincoln scholar, has written and edited numerous essential volumes, including Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies and Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 . In Lincoln at Cooper Union he does for Lincoln’s 1860 speech what Garry Wills did for the Gettysburg Address. Holzer makes a convincing case that the speech not only made Lincoln the leading Republican candidate for president but defined the policies on which he was elected.

Perhaps Holzer’s most outstanding recent work is Emancipating Lincoln . Compact and precise—just 172 pages of text and 23 pages of notes—the book is a model of lucid historical writing. There is probably no important document in our country’s history that even Civil War students know so little about than the Emancipation Proclamation. Much of the story, it turns out, is in the back story. Lincoln, once convinced of both the economic and moral validity of freeing the slaves, agonized over the process, rewriting his proclamation three times. (He tested the waters, so to speak, by first abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, ending, in Holzer’s words, “the incomprehensible anomaly that permitted slavery to exist in the capital of the United States until the second year of a pro-slavery rebellion against the government.”

Short on literary flourish, the Proclamation was long on impact. Its reputation in our own time has declined so much that the Proclamation “is now often viewed not as revolutionary but as delayed, insufficient, and insincere.” Holzer, though, makes a reasoned argument that the lack of fire in Lincoln’s prose was deliberate as he did not wish to enflame moderates and that, whatever it did not accomplish at the moment was largely irrelevant; once the Proclamation was made slavery was doomed. Perhaps Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew said it best: “a poor document, but a mighty act.”

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006)

It took 141 years after the death of Lincoln for a book to appear which put into detail his genius for reading character and establishing relationships. Lincoln found admirable traits in, among others, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates, Edwin M. Stanton, four men who not only sought the Republican nomination for president in 1860 but held Lincoln himself in contempt. (Stanton referred to the President as “a long-armed ape.”—and you thought Obama got no respect.) No other history has probed the backgrounds of Lincoln’s cabinet members in such depth nor revealed the machinations that Lincoln used to mold a winning team from such disparate players. ( Team of Rivals served as the historical basis for Spielberg’s film Lincoln. )

Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan (2008)

Just when you thought there were no new angles to approach Lincoln from, Fred Kaplan, a distinguished professor emeritus of English at Queens College and, among others, author of The Singular Mark Twain, defined Lincoln through his own words, words that were shaped through early exposure to Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Aesop’s Fables, the writings of Thomas Jefferson, John Bunyon, the speeches of Henry Clay, Classical writers, and poets such as Thomas Gray and Oliver Wendell Holmes and others. “For Lincoln,” writes Kaplan, “words mattered immensely. His increasing skill in their use during his lifetime, and his valuation of their power, mark him as the one president who is both a national leader and a genius with language.” William Dean Howells called Mark Twain the “Lincoln of our literature. Lincoln, Kaplan claims, “was the Twain of our politics.” Kaplan, the editor and critic, and Lincoln, the writer, are a wonderful combination.

Lincoln and the World by Kevin Peraino (2013)

“There can be no new Lincoln stories,” one of the President’s former secretaries wrote in 1900, “the stories are all told.” And yet, as Kevin Peraino writes in his compelling book, Lincoln in the World, “One of the unexpected joys of studying Lincoln in the 21st-century is how much astonishing new material about him has come to light.”

Lincoln in the World focuses on several distinct challenges that defined “Lincolnian foreign policy.” As a young Congressman, he opposed President Polk’s aggressive policy towards Mexico and the subsequent war. (His enemies in Illinois dubbed him “the Benedict Arnold of our district.”) He struggled with his brilliant but irascible secretary of state, William Seward, to control the direction of foreign policy. His standoff with British prime minister Lord Palmerston over the Trent affair, in which U.S. sailors forcibly boarded a British ship to remove Confederate agents. Wisely, he decided to appease the British.) He also engaged in an ongoing chess match with Napoleon III over France’s interference in Mexico.

The thread that runs through each episode is Lincoln’s common sense, good judgment and, above all, patience. He often proved “more adept at the arts of diplomacy that then polished and gold-braided envoys of Europe.” Lincoln in the World isn’t the first work to point out Lincoln’s brilliance as a seminal foreign policy president, but it is the first to gather all the key episodes. Among the choice nuggets Peraino unearths is a letter to Lincoln from none other than Karl Marx, who congratulated him on “the triumphant war cry of your reelection.”

Lincoln by Gore Vidal (1984)

Probably the greatest fictional account of Lincoln’s presidency as well as Vidal’s best novel. Lincoln is seen mostly through the eyes of those who knew him—Vidal’s scholarship is admirable, and he seems to draw from every period source who came in contact with the man Vidal has described as “the American Bismarck.” In other words, the philosophy behind the fiction is that Lincoln did not so much preserve his country as create it, an idea that derives from Edmund Wilson’s Patriotic Gore (no relation to Vidal) but which Vidal brings to life. Vidal uses modern literary technique to bring period detail to life.

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Abraham Lincoln

Michael Burlingame

This award-winning biography has been hailed as the definitive portrait of Lincoln. Named One of the 5 Best Books of 2009 by The Atlantic Named One of the 10 Top Lincoln Books by Chicago Tribune Winner, 2008 PROSE Award for Best Book in U.S. History and Biography/Autobiography, Association of American Publishers Winner, 2010 Lincoln Prize from the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College 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...

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.

In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's presidency and the trials of the Civil War. He supplies fascinating details on the crisis over Fort Sumter and the relentless office seekers who plagued Lincoln. He introduces readers to the president's battles with hostile newspaper editors and his quarrels with incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also interprets Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son Willie to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.

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Myrna Perez

Ian Milligan

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Lindsay Weinberg

Andrew Sillen

The author knows more about Lincoln than any other living person.

Lincoln has, of course, been the subject of an extensive body of literature due to the unquestioned importance of his presidency, his remarkable rise from frontier hardship to commander in chief, and his composition of some of the great works of American statesmanship. Burlingame describes all of this in such an impressive fashion that even readers already very well-versed on Lincoln's life and the Civil War will find much of value here... Burlingame has set a very high bar for future students of the Great Emancipator... It is unlikely that [a study] will appear anytime soon that matches the breadth and depth of coverage found in Burlingame's study, or challenges its place as the outstanding multi-volume account of Lincoln's life.

Book Details

Volume I. Author's Note 1. "I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World": Childhood in Kentucky (1809–1816) 2. "I Used to Be a Slave": Boyhood and Adolescence in Indiana (1816–1830) 3.

Volume I. Author's Note 1. "I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World": Childhood in Kentucky (1809–1816) 2. "I Used to Be a Slave": Boyhood and Adolescence in Indiana (1816–1830) 3. "Separated from His Father, He Studied English Grammar": New Salem (1831–1834) 4. "A Napoleon of Astuteness and Political Finesse": Frontier Legislator (1834–1837) 5. "We Must Fight the Devil with Fire": Slasher-Gaff Politico in Springfield (1837–1841) 6. "It Would Just Kill Me to Marry Mary Todd": Courtship and Marriage (1840–1842) 7. "I Have Got the Preacher by the Balls": Pursuing a Seat in Congress (1843–1847) 8. "A Strong but Judicious Enemy to Slavery": Congressman Lincoln (1847–1849) 9. "I Was Losing Interest in Politics and Went to the Practice of the Law with Greater Earnestness Than Ever Before": Midlife Crisis (1849–1854) 10. "Aroused as He Had Never Been Before": Reentering Politics (1854–1855) 11. "Unite with Us, and Help Us to Triumph": Building the Illinois Republican Party (1855–1857) 12. "A House Divided": Lincoln vs. Douglas (1857–1858) 13. "A David Greater than the Democratic Goliath": The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) 14. "That Presidential Grub Gnaws Deep": Pursuing the Republican Nomination (1859–1860) 15. "The Most Available Presidential Candidate for Unadulterated Republicans": The Chicago Convention (May 1860) 16. "I Have Been Elected Mainly on the Cry 'Honest Old Abe' ": The Presidential Campaign (May–November 1860) 17. "I Will Suffer Death Before I Will Consent to Any Concession or Compromise": President-elect in Springfield (1860–1861) 18. "What If I Appoint Cameron, Whose Very Name Stinks in the Nostrils of the People for His Corruption?": Cabinet-Making in Springfield (1860–1861) Notes Index Volume II. 19. "The Man Does Not Live Who Is More Devoted to Peace Than I Am, But It May Be Necessary to Put the Foot Down Firmly": From Springfield to Washington (February 11–22, 1861) 20. "I Am Now Going to Be Master": Inauguration (February 23–March 4, 1861) 21. "A Man So Busy Letting Rooms in One End of His House, That He Can't Stop to Put Out the Fire That Is Burning in the Other": Distributing Patronage (March–April 1861) 22. "You Can Have No Conf lict Without Being Yourselves the Aggressors": The Fort Sumter Crisis (March–April 1861) 23. "I Intend to Give Blows": The Hundred Days (April–July 1861) 24. Sitzkrieg: The Phony War (August 1861–January 1862) 25 "This Damned Old House": The Lincoln Family in the Executive Mansion 26. "I Expect to Maintain This Contest Until Successful, or Till I Die, or Am Conquered, or My Term Expires, or Congress or the Country Forsakes Me": From the Slough of Despond to the Gates of Richmond (January–July 1862) 27. "The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery": Playing the Last Trump Card (January–July 1862) 28. "Would You Prosecute the War with Elder- Stalk Squirts, Charged with Rose Water?": The Soft War Turns Hard (July–September 1862) 29. "I Am Not a Bold Man, But I Have the Knack of Sticking to My Promises!": The Emancipation Proclamation (September– December 1862) 30. "Go Forward, and Give Us Victories": From the Mud March to Gettysburg (January–July 1863) 31. "The Signs Look Better": Victory at the Polls and in the Field (July–November 1863) 32. "I Hope to Stand Firm Enough to Not Go Backward, and Yet Not Go Forward Fast Enough to Wreck the Country's Cause": Reconstruction and Renomination (November 1863–June 1864) 33. "Hold On with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible": The Grand Offensive (May–August 1864) 34. "The Wisest Radical of All": Reelection (September–November 1864) 35. "Let the Thing Be Pressed": Victory at Last (November 1864– April 1865) 36. "I Feel a Presentiment That I Shall Not Outlast the Rebellion. When It Is Over, My Work Will Be Done.": The Final Days (April 9–15, 1865) Acknowledgments Note on Sources Notes Index

Michael Burlingame, Ph.D.

with Hopkins Press Books

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11 Books About Abraham Lincoln

From biographies to a collection of Lincoln’s writings, there’s much more to the 16th president than you might think.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

About 15,000 books about Abraham Lincoln have been published, and yet it seems that there will always be more to learn about Honest Abe. Small wonder, considering the role the 16th president played in American history and what he accomplished during his time in office. No president has confronted greater turmoil before or since, and Lincoln's staunch leadership and unparalleled ability to communicate big ideas to vast audiences helped ensure the Union's success, which of course led to the end of slavery and the birth of the United States of America that we know today.

Born on February 12, 1809, Lincoln began his campaign to gain political leadership in the 1840s. He rose from the obscurity of a failed campaign to join the House of Representatives in 1843 to become the the Republican nominee for president in 1860. And in one of the nation's most contentious political climates, full of horse-trading and smoke-filled back room dealing, Lincoln became the country's 16th president, just as the issue of slavery was threatening to tear the nation apart–which of course, it ultimately did. Lincoln had to navigate uncharted waters from the moment he took office, and his unflinching confidence and determined resolve buoyed the nation during its most precipitous moment.

Related: The True Glory of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment

But Abraham Lincoln was more than just a political entity. He was a complex figure: loving husband and father, cunning politician, famed orator, and tough-as-nails back-woodsman. The books on our list all give color to the many facets of Lincoln's persona and shed light on some of his more overlooked, and perhaps even unlikeable, qualities.

Lincoln’s presidency, reputation, stance on slavery, philosophical beliefs, literary works, and even his personal life are constantly being re-examined from fresh perspectives. No president's life, decisions, and actions have been afforded greater scrutiny or consideration. With that in mind, here are some of the best books about Abraham Lincoln, filled to the brim with interesting facts and details.

Mr. Lincoln's Army

By Bruce Catton

Bruce Catton was easily one of the greatest historians writing during the 20th century. Not only was he a Pulitzer Prize winner, but his work also resulted in the creation of the Bruce Catton Prize, given for lifetime achievement in history writing. Catton’s books also served as the basis for Ken Burns’ The Civil War documentary.

Mr. Lincoln’s Army , the first volume in Catton’s series, The Potomac Trilogy , describes the history of the beginning years of the Civil War and Lincoln’s decision to choose George B. McClellan to lead the Union Army after the secession of the Southern States. Lincoln had a complicated relationship with McClellan, partially due to the general’s belief that Lincoln was not fit to be commander-in-chief. Catton’s focus on the military aspects of Lincoln’s presidency adds a crucial viewpoint to the study of his administration.

Lincoln Reconsidered

By David Herbert Donald

Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln , a 1995 biography, this collection of 12 essays takes a fresh look at Lincoln’s legacy and reputation, as it wades through the myths that have sometimes complicated our view of Lincoln. Donald digs into the complex relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his law partner and biographer, William Herndon, as well as Lincoln's wife, Mary. Donald also takes a deeper look at the antislavery movement.

Related: 9 Essential Books About Slavery in America

Bluff, Bluster, Lies and Spies

By David Perry

Perry’s book is perfect for foreign policy enthusiasts and lovers of Lincoln. With a focus on his administration’s relationship with Great Britain during the Civil War, this account illuminates the great naval power’s role and how its interaction with other European countries influenced the Prime Minister’s decisions. Lincoln had to be tactical when confronting the British, and he was aware of the significant effect it could have on the success of the Union or the Confederacy.

The Complete Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln

By Abraham Lincoln

Rather than reading about Lincoln, why not go straight to the source? As a lawyer, statesman, and president, Lincoln produced a significant body of writings from 1832 to 1865. These works present Lincoln as a writer, politician, and leader through his famous speeches, personal letters, and telegrams. If you want to get a better understanding of Lincoln’s historic ideas, military strategies, and personal thoughts, then this collection is exactly what you should read.

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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

By Doris Kearns Goodwin

Not only is Goodwin an expert presidential biographer—she won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1995—but she is also the recipient of the Lincoln Prize, which is awarded for excellent scholarly work on Lincoln in English. Her biography describes the incredible story of Lincoln’s journey to the presidency, how he defeated his rivals, and why he was able to succeed. As Goodwin argues, it was Lincoln’s political skill and understanding of people that led him to win the election and create an administration that would lead the Union to win the Civil War. Steven Spielburg's 2012 biopic, Lincoln , was primarily based on Goodwin's book.

Related: 9 Best Civil War Movies

Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory

By Harold Holzer

Harold Holzer, a winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize as well as many other Lincoln-related achievements, is probably best known for his award-winning book, Lincoln and the Power of the Press . However, we recommend giving another one of his books a go. Emancipating Lincoln takes a sharp look at the single most important document the 16th president of the United States ever produced: the Emancipation Proclamation. By examining overlooked sources and investigating American responses to the document, Holzer is able to contextualize Lincoln in order to get to the true intent and meaning behind his language.

Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History

By Richard Wightman Fox

If you imagine Daniel Day-Lewis—who portrayed the president in the 2012 film, Lincoln —when you think of Lincoln, then this may be the book you need. Written by a professor who teaches an undergraduate course called “The World of Abraham Lincoln”, Lincoln’s Body traces the cultural history of our tallest president (he was 6’4”, in case you were wondering). From his height to his “rough appearance,” Fox deciphers how Lincoln’s physicality and appearance contributed to the often-positive way people viewed him, and how it therefore contributed to his success.

Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point

By Lewis E. Lehrman

Lehrman’s book focuses on the pivotal speech that Lincoln gave in Peoria, Illinois on October 16, 1854. Concentrating on the legal, economic, and, most importantly, moral arguments against slavery, Lincoln’s speech is crucial to the intense historical debates about his position on the subject. In addition to his career as a businessman, economist, and politician, Lehrman is also a historian who has written quite a few books on Lincoln—including Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War , which was released in 2018. In 2005, President George W. Bush presented Lehrman with a National Humanities Medal.

Related: 12 Essential Civil War Books

Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer

By Fred Kaplan

In case the complete collection of Lincoln’s written works wasn’t enough for you, this biography of Lincoln as a literary and philosophical figure should satisfy. Although Lincoln as a writer is a topic that has been explored many times before—particularly by Edmund Wilson, one of the great literary critics of the 20th century, and Garry Wills, who wrote about the significance of the Gettysburg Address—Kaplan demonstrates the gravity of Lincoln’s language, as well as those who influenced him, from a fresh perspective.

366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency

By Stephen A. Wynalda

Examine a year (and a day) in the life of the man who many consider to be the United States's greatest president. From 1861-62, Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, enacted the first federal income tax, and dealt with the tragic death of his eleven-year old son, Willie. Peer into some of Lincoln's most private moments to learn what this legendary figure was like on a very human level.

Mr. Lincoln Goes to War

By William Marvel

Was The Civil War inevitable? The award-winning author of Andersonville and Lincoln’s Autocrat assesses Abraham Lincoln's first year in office, from his inauguration through the rising crisis of secession and the first several months of the war. By reexamining history through a fresh lens, Marvel asks tough questions about the 16th president, and draws conclusions that some might consider controversial. For example, Marvel claims that not only did Lincoln miss opportunities to avoid going to war, he actually fanned the flames of war and intentionally led the country into its greatest conflict. This is revisionist history at its best.

Related: 10 American Wars, One Book Each

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Author Interviews

David s. reynold's book 'abe' reveals new information about lincoln.

NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with historian David S. Reynolds about his biography of Abraham Lincoln entitled Abe . In it, the acclaimed author reveals new information about the 16th president.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

No matter how divided the country is now, Abraham Lincoln had it worse. He was president during the Civil War. A new biography explores Lincoln's life, and while it is one of many, it comes from historian David S. Reynolds, author of acclaimed works on the 19th century. "Abe" follows a president who steered a middle course. He even steered a middle course on slavery, waiting for years into the war before issuing his Emancipation Proclamation.

Reynolds writes of Lincoln's political style in a chapter called Blondin, Barnum and B'Hoys - three B's - Blondin, Barnum and B'Hoys. Each of those three was a 19th century cultural phenomenon that reveals something fresh about Lincoln.

DAVID S REYNOLDS: Charles Blondin was the stage name for a French acrobat who was a famous tightrope walker. In 1859, in the summer and fall, he came to America and made a tour. And among his amazing feats was to walk a tightrope without a net, of course, across Niagara Falls. And he would do this and do tricks - somersaults. He went over on stilts. He went at night. He went in chains but, most famously, pushing a wheelbarrow and then, even more famously, carrying a man on his back across Niagara Falls.

INSKEEP: I'm getting tense just listening to you describe this.

REYNOLDS: I know. I know (laughter). I - yeah, he became a real sensation. And quite quickly, Lincoln was compared in the popular press to Blondin because Lincoln stood between extremes. He was kind of on a tightrope. And, intentionally, he wanted to be there. And several times, he himself compared himself to Blondin because when people during the Civil War came to him and said, can't you make it more of an antislavery war explicitly and - or this - he said, if I were Blondin and I had the entire nation's riches and fortunes and future in my wheelbarrow, would you be telling me to, you know, lean left, lean right? He said, no, you'd be quiet and allow me to stay right where I am, right in the center.

INSKEEP: So Blondin, this tightrope walker, gives us some of Lincoln's style, and then you mention Barnum, P.T. Barnum.

REYNOLDS: Yes.

INSKEEP: Who is he and what does he have to do with Abraham Lincoln?

REYNOLDS: P.T. Barnum was the great showman of his day who put on exhibit a lot of people who represented what I call the -est (ph) factor - the largest, the smallest, (laughter) the strangest-looking or the oldest, whatever. And most of these were just humbugs, such as a 160-year-old woman who actually was only in her 70s.

But Lincoln himself was kind of put on exhibit. And he used to joke about himself as being the ugliest guy around. A lot of - even biographers at that time kind of made fun of his cavernous face and kind of unkempt hair and deep-set eyes. He was often compared to an ape or a gorilla, and he had a very awkward gait and everything. This may sound like a very critical thing, and it was a very critical thing, but the people at that time sort of feasted on this kind of sensationalism. And there was a side of Lincoln that almost tapped into this kind of performative, Barnum-esque theatrical culture of the day.

INSKEEP: In what way?

REYNOLDS: Well, he allowed himself to be advertised as Old Abe, Honest Abe, Abe the Illinois Rail Splitter. What happened during the 1860 campaign - it was called the Rail Splitter Campaign because there were pictures of him everywhere in rolled-up sleeves, no coat, no jacket. I mean, by that time, he was a respectable lawyer who wore ties and jackets and everything like that. But he said, you know, I did get elected because of my image, of Babe (ph), the Illinois Rail Splitter.

And it became such a popular trope. There were literally newspapers called the Rail Splitter and campaign posters and so forth and songs. And it was all about him cutting down trees and splitting rails and everything. And that was very, very much Barnum-esque culture.

INSKEEP: So he's a tightrope walker. He's a bit of a showman.

REYNOLDS: Yeah.

INSKEEP: And then in this three B chapter - Blondin, Barnum and B'Hoys - what are B'Hoys? That's not a word I quite recognize.

REYNOLDS: B'Hoys was the average street person of that time. He emerged, initially, out of the New York streets in the 1840s. But this was the working-class figure - the butcher, the carpenter, the common laborer, the kind of everyday man - who becomes a national myth. And Lincoln was kind of presented as this version of the Illinois B'Hoy, this kind of rough, crude and yet, basically, honest. I mean, the B'Hoy - he was rough but also, basically, very good-hearted.

And then it got picked up by his followers, these young followers who were called the Wide Awakes. And these were generally young men - sometimes young women, but mainly young men - who dressed up in oilskin coats and carried torches. And they were really the ones who led the rallies.

INSKEEP: So these were kind of a youth movement but of average, not well-educated people who related to Lincoln, felt that Lincoln was one of them.

REYNOLDS: Absolutely. They related. And the fact that he had a slight, kind of a Midwestern accent and would sometimes use slang words and tell jokes. He was known for his humor - very much the average person could identify with him. And he really became beloved among many Northerners.

INSKEEP: You have written about the president who presided over the most divided time in America, when divisions led to actual civil war. Do you feel like you know one thing that Lincoln would do if he confronted the divisions that we face today?

REYNOLDS: I do know one thing. The one thing that he would do today is that he would not inflame partisan divisions because he would know that the very worst thing that you can do is to inflame them. And even in conducting the Civil War, that was beyond a partisan division; that was a war that was conducted - it was actually begun by the South and its belief in slavery. He wanted to win the war and to make a deal with the South, but he always had justice, human justice, within his mind.

And if he were alive today, he would always have human rights in his mind. And it did turn out to be an anti-slavery war, which was the greatest injustice to human beings that has happened in American history. So he would be thinking of all Americans, but that would include African Americans. And back then, there were 4 million enslaved African Americans. So that's how he would respond today.

INSKEEP: The newest book from the acclaimed historian David S. Reynolds is "Abe: Abraham Lincoln In His Times." Thank you, sir.

REYNOLDS: Thank you very much, Steve.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union during the American Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing enslaved people.

Quick Facts

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Abraham Lincoln was the 16 th president of the United States , serving from 1861 to 1865, and is regarded as one of America’s greatest heroes due to his roles in guiding the Union through the Civil War and working to emancipate enslaved people. His eloquent support of democracy and insistence that the Union was worth saving embody the ideals of self-government that all nations strive to achieve. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves across the Confederacy. Lincoln’s rise from humble beginnings to achieving the highest office in the land is a remarkable story, and his death is equally notably. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865, at age 56, as the country was slowly beginning to reunify following the war. Lincoln’s distinctively humane personality and incredible impact on the nation have endowed him with an enduring legacy.

FULL NAME: Abraham Lincoln BORN: February 12, 1809 DIED: April 15, 1865 BIRTHPLACE: Hodgenville, Kentucky SPOUSE: Mary Todd Lincoln (m. 1842) CHILDREN: Robert Todd Lincoln , Edward Baker Lincoln, William Wallace Lincoln, and Thomas “Tad” Lincoln ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius HEIGHT: 6 feet 4 inches

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to parents Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln in rural Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Thomas was a strong and determined pioneer who found a moderate level of prosperity and was well respected in the community. The couple had two other children: Lincoln’s older sister, Sarah, and younger brother, Thomas, who died in infancy. His death wasn’t the only tragedy the family would endure.

In 1817, the Lincolns were forced to move from young Abraham’s Kentucky birthplace to Perry County, Indiana, due to a land dispute. In Indiana, the family “squatted” on public land to scrap out a living in a crude shelter, hunting game and farming a small plot. Lincoln’s father was eventually able to buy the land.

When Lincoln was 9 years old, his 34-year-old mother died of tremetol, more commonly known as milk sickness, on October 5, 1818. The event was devastating to the young boy, who grew more alienated from his father and quietly resented the hard work placed on him at an early age.

In December 1819, just over a year after his mother’s death, Lincoln’s father Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a Kentucky widow with three children of her own. She was a strong and affectionate woman with whom Lincoln quickly bonded.

Although both his parents were most likely illiterate, Thomas’ new wife Sarah encouraged Lincoln to read. It was while growing into manhood that Lincoln received his formal education—an estimated total of 18 months—a few days or weeks at a time.

Reading material was in short supply in the Indiana wilderness. Neighbors recalled how Lincoln would walk for miles to borrow a book. He undoubtedly read the family Bible and probably other popular books at that time such as Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim’s Progres s, and Aesop’s Fable s.

In March 1830, the family again migrated, this time to Macon County, Illinois. When his father moved the family again to Coles County, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, making a living in manual labor.

Lincoln was 6 feet 4 inches tall, rawboned and lanky yet muscular and physically strong. He spoke with a backwoods twang and walked with a long-striding gait. He was known for his skill in wielding an ax and early on made a living splitting wood for fire and rail fencing.

Young Lincoln eventually migrated to the small community of New Salem, Illinois, where over a period of years he worked as a shopkeeper, postmaster, and eventually general store owner. It was through working with the public that Lincoln acquired social skills and honed a storytelling talent that made him popular with the locals.

Not surprising given his imposing frame, Lincoln was an excellent wrestler and had only one recorded loss—to Hank Thompson in 1832—over a span of 12 years. A shopkeeper who employed Lincoln in New Salem, Illinois, reportedly arranged bouts for him as a way to promote the business. Lincoln notably beat a local champion named Jack Armstrong and became somewhat of a hero. (The National Wrestling Hall of Fame posthumously gave Lincoln its Outstanding American Award in 1992.)

When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832 between the United States and Native Americans, the volunteers in the area elected Lincoln to be their captain. He saw no combat during this time, save for “a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes,” but was able to make several important political connections.

As he was starting his political career in the early 1830s, Lincoln decided to become a lawyer. He taught himself the law by reading William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England . After being admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice in the John T. Stuart law firm.

In 1844, Lincoln partnered with William Herndon in the practice of law. Although the two had different jurisprudent styles, they developed a close professional and personal relationship.

Lincoln made a good living in his early years as a lawyer but found that Springfield alone didn’t offer enough work. So to supplement his income, he followed the court as it made its rounds on the circuit to the various county seats in Illinois.

mary todd lincoln sitting in a chair and holding flowers for a photo

On November 4, 1842, Lincoln wed Mary Todd , a high-spirited, well-educated woman from a distinguished Kentucky family. Although they were married until Lincoln’s death, their relationship had a history of instability.

When the couple became engaged in 1840, many of their friends and family couldn’t understand Mary’s attraction; at times, Lincoln questioned it himself. In 1841, the engagement was suddenly broken off, most likely at Lincoln’s initiative. Mary and Lincoln met later at a social function and eventually did get married.

The couple had four sons— Robert Todd , Edward Baker, William Wallace, and Thomas “Tad”—of whom only Robert survived to adulthood.

Before marrying Todd, Lincoln was involved with other potential matches. Around 1837, he purportedly met and became romantically involved with Anne Rutledge. Before they had a chance to be engaged, a wave of typhoid fever came over New Salem, and Anne died at age 22.

Her death was said to have left Lincoln severely depressed. However, several historians disagree on the extent of Lincoln’s relationship with Rutledge, and his level of sorrow at her death might be more the makings of legend.

About a year after the death of Rutledge, Lincoln courted Mary Owens. The two saw each other for a few months, and marriage was considered. But in time, Lincoln called off the match.

In 1834, Lincoln began his political career and was elected to the Illinois state legislature as a member of the Whig Party . More than a decade later, from 1847 to 1849, he served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives. His foray into national politics seemed to be as unremarkable as it was brief. He was the lone Whig from Illinois, showing party loyalty but finding few political allies.

As a congressman, Lincoln used his term in office to speak out against the Mexican-American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. His criticism of the war made him unpopular back home, and he decided not to run for second term. Instead, he returned to Springfield to practice law.

By the 1850s, the railroad industry was moving west, and Illinois found itself becoming a major hub for various companies. Lincoln served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad as its company attorney.

Success in several court cases brought other business clients as well, including banks, insurance companies, and manufacturing firms. Lincoln also worked in some criminal trials.

In one case, a witness claimed that he could identify Lincoln’s client who was accused of murder, because of the intense light from a full moon. Lincoln referred to an almanac and proved that the night in question had been too dark for the witness to see anything clearly. His client was acquitted.

As a member of the Illinois state legislature, Lincoln supported the Whig politics of government-sponsored infrastructure and protective tariffs. This political understanding led him to formulate his early views on slavery, not so much as a moral wrong, but as an impediment to economic development.

In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act , which repealed the Missouri Compromise , allowing individual states and territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. The law provoked violent opposition in Kansas and Illinois, and it gave rise to today’s Republican Party .

This awakened Lincoln’s political zeal once again, and his views on slavery moved more toward moral indignation. Lincoln joined the Republican Party in 1856.

In 1857, the Supreme Court issued its controversial Dred Scott decision, declaring Black people were not citizens and had no inherent rights. Although Lincoln felt Black people weren’t equal to whites, he believed America’s founders intended that all men were created with certain inalienable rights.

Lincoln decided to challenge sitting U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas for his seat. In his nomination acceptance speech, he criticized Douglas, the Supreme Court , and President James Buchanan for promoting slavery then declared “a house divided cannot stand.”

During Lincoln’s 1858 U.S. Senate campaign against Douglas, he participated in seven debates held in different cities across Illinois. The two candidates didn’t disappoint, giving stirring debates on issues such as states’ rights and western expansion. But the central issue was slavery.

Newspapers intensely covered the debates, often times with partisan commentary. In the end, the state legislature elected Douglas, but the exposure vaulted Lincoln into national politics.

With his newly enhanced political profile, in 1860, political operatives in Illinois organized a campaign to support Lincoln for the presidency. On May 18, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln surpassed better-known candidates such as William Seward of New York and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Lincoln’s nomination was due, in part, to his moderate views on slavery, his support for improving the national infrastructure, and the protective tariff.

In the November 1860 general election, Lincoln faced his friend and rival Stephen Douglas, this time besting him in a four-way race that included John C. Breckinridge of the Northern Democrats and John Bell of the Constitution Party. Lincoln received not quite 40 percent of the popular vote but carried 180 of 303 Electoral College votes, thus winning the U.S. presidency. He grew his trademark beard after his election.

Lincoln’s Cabinet

Following his election to the presidency in 1860, Lincoln selected a strong cabinet composed of many of his political rivals, including William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Edwin Stanton.

Formed out the adage “Hold your friends close and your enemies closer,” Lincoln’s cabinet became one of his strongest assets in his first term in office, and he would need them as the clouds of war gathered over the nation the following year.

abraham lincoln stands next to 15 union army soldiers in uniform at a war camp, lincoln holds onto the back of a chair and wears a long jacket and top hat

Before Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and by April, the U.S. military installation Fort Sumter was under siege in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, the guns stationed to protect the harbor blazed toward the fort, signaling the start of the U.S. Civil War , America’s costliest and bloodiest war.

The newly President Lincoln responded to the crisis wielding powers as no other president before him: He distributed $2 million from the Treasury for war material without an appropriation from Congress; he called for 75,000 volunteers into military service without a declaration of war; and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, allowing for the arrest and imprisonment of suspected Confederate States sympathizers without a warrant.

Crushing the rebellion would be difficult under any circumstances, but the Civil War, after decades of white-hot partisan politics, was especially onerous. From all directions, Lincoln faced disparagement and defiance. He was often at odds with his generals, his cabinet, his party, and a majority of the American people.

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln delivered his official Emancipation Proclamation , reshaping the cause of the Civil War from saving the Union to abolishing slavery.

The Union Army’s first year and a half of battlefield defeats made it difficult to keep morale high and support strong for a reunification of the nation. And the Union victory at Antietam on September 22, 1862, while by no means conclusive, was hopeful. It gave Lincoln the confidence to officially change the goals of the war. On that same day, he issued a preliminary proclamation that slaves in states rebelling against the Union would be free as of January 1.

The Emancipation Proclamation stated that all individuals who were held as enslaved people in rebellious states “henceforward shall be free.” The action was more symbolic than effective because the North didn’t control any states in rebellion, and the proclamation didn’t apply to border states, Tennessee, or some Louisiana parishes.

As a result, the Union army shared the Proclamation’s mandate only after it had taken control of Confederate territory. In the far reaches of western Texas, that day finally came on June 19, 1865—more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. For decades, many Black Americans have celebrated this anniversary, known as Juneteenth or Emancipation Day, and in 2021, President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a national holiday.

Still, the Emancipation Proclamation did have some immediate impact. It permitted Black Americans to serve in the Union Army for the first time, which contributed to the eventual Union victory. The historic declaration also paved the way for the passage of the 13 th Amendment that ended legal slavery in the United States.

a painting of the gettysburg address with abraham lincoln standing on a stage and talking to a crowd

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered what would become his most famous speech and one of the most important speeches in American history: the Gettysburg Address .

Addressing a crowd of around 15,000 people, Lincoln delivered his 272-word speech at one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War, the Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania. The Civil War, Lincoln said, was the ultimate test of the preservation of the Union created in 1776, and the people who died at Gettysburg fought to uphold this cause.

Lincoln evoked the Declaration of Independence , saying it was up to the living to ensure that the “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” and this Union was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

A common interpretation was that the president was expanding the cause of the Civil War from simply reunifying the Union to also fighting for equality and abolishing slavery.

Following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the war effort gradually improved for the North, though more by attrition than by brilliant military victories.

But by 1864, the Confederate armies had eluded major defeat and Lincoln was convinced he’d be a one-term president. His nemesis George B. McClellan , the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, challenged him for the presidency, but the contest wasn’t even close. Lincoln received 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 243 electoral votes.

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee , commander of the Army of Virginia, surrendered his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant . The Civil War was for all intents and purposes over.

Reconstruction had already began during the Civil War, as early as 1863 in areas firmly under Union military control, and Lincoln favored a policy of quick reunification with a minimum of retribution. He was confronted by a radical group of Republicans in Congress that wanted complete allegiance and repentance from former Confederates. Before a political debate had any chance to firmly develop, Lincoln was killed.

Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. Lincoln was taken to the Petersen House across the street and laid in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. He was 56. His death was mourned by millions of citizens in the North and South alike.

Lincoln’s body first lay in state at the U. S. Capitol. About 600 invited guests attended a funeral in the East Room of the White House on April 19, though an inconsolable Mary Todd Lincoln wasn’t present.

His body was transported to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois, by a funeral train. Newspapers publicized the schedule of the train, which made stops along various cities that played roles in Lincoln’s path to Washington. In 10 cities, the casket was removed and placed in public for memorial services. Lincoln was finally placed in a tomb on May 4.

On the day of Lincoln’s death, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17 th president at the Kirkwood House hotel in Washington.

Lincoln, already taller than most, is known for his distinctive top hats. Although it’s unclear when he began wearing them, historians believe he likely chose the style as a gimmick.

He wore a top hat to Ford’s Theatre on the night of his assassination. Following his death, the War Department preserved the hat until 1867 when, with Mary Todd Lincoln’s approval, it was transferred to the Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institution. Worried about the commotion it might cause, the Smithsonian stored the hat in a basement instead of putting it on display. It was finally exhibited in 1893, and it’s now one of the Institution’s most treasured items.

Lincoln is frequently cited by historians and average citizens alike as America’s greatest president. An aggressively activist commander-in-chief, Lincoln used every power at his disposal to assure victory in the Civil War and end slavery in the United States.

Some scholars doubt that the Union would have been preserved had another person of lesser character been in the White House. According to historian Michael Burlingame , “No president in American history ever faced a greater crisis and no president ever accomplished as much.”

Lincoln’s philosophy was perhaps best summed up in his Second Inaugural Address , when he stated, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The Lincoln Memorial

a large statue of abraham lincoln with an engraving behind it

Since its dedication in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington has honored the president’s legacy. Inspired by the Greek Parthenon, the monument features a 19-foot high statue of Lincoln and engravings of the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. Former President William Howard Taft served as chair of the Lincoln Memorial Commission, which oversaw its design and construction.

The monument is the most visited in the city, attracting around 8 million people per year. Civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the memorial’s steps in 1963.

Lincoln has been the subject of numerous films about his life and presidency, rooted in both realism and absurdity.

Among the earlier films featuring the former president is Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), which stars Henry Fonda and focuses on Lincoln’s early life and law career. A year later, Abe Lincoln in Illinois gave a dramatized account of Lincoln’s life after leaving Kentucky.

The most notable modern film is Lincoln , the 2012 biographical drama directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Field as his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln . Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and the film was nominated for Best Picture.

A more fantastical depiction of Lincoln came in the 1989 comedy film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure , in which the titular characters played by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter travel back in time for the president’s help in completing their high school history report. Lincoln gives the memorable instruction to “be excellent to each other and... party on, dudes!”

Another example is the 2012 action film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter , based on a 2010 novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. Benjamin Walker plays Lincoln, who leads a secret double life hunting the immortal creatures and even fighting them during the Civil War.

Lincoln’s role during the Civil War is heavily explored in the 1990 Ken Burns documentary The Civil War , which won two Emmy Awards and two Grammys. In 2022, the History Channel aired a three-part docuseries about his life simply titled Abraham Lincoln .

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other ’ s consent.
I have learned the value of old friends by making many new ones.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing over slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
Don ’ t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation ’ s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
Nearly all men can handle adversity, if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
I ’ m the big buck of this lick. If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns.
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven and he grew up on the edge of the frontier. He had very little formal education, but read voraciously when not working on his father’s farm. A childhood friend later recalled Lincoln's "manic" intellect, and the sight of him red-eyed and tousle-haired as he pored over books late into the night. In 1828, at the age of nineteen, he accompanied a produce-laden flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Louisiana—his first visit to a large city--and then walked back home. Two years later, trying to avoid health and finance troubles, Lincoln's father moved the family moved to Illinois.

After moving away from home, Lincoln co-owned a general store for several years before selling his stake and enlisting as a militia captain defending Illinois in the Black Hawk War of 1832. Black Hawk, a Sauk chief, believed he had been swindled by a recent land deal and sought to resettle his old holdings. Lincoln did not see direct combat during the short conflict, but the sight of corpse-strewn battlefields at Stillman's Run and Kellogg's Grove deeply affected him. As a captain, he developed a reputation for pragmatism and integrity. Once, faced with a rail fence during practice maneuvers and forgetting the parade-ground instructions to direct his men over it, he simply ordered them to fall out and reassemble on the other side a minute later. Another time, he stopped his men before they executed a wandering Native American as a spy. Stepping in front of their raised muskets, Lincoln is said to have challenged his men to combat for the terrified native's life. His men stood down.

After the war, he studied law and campaigned for a seat on the Illinois State Legislature. Although not elected in his first attempt, Lincoln persevered and won the position in 1834, serving as a Whig.

Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois where he was practicing as a lawyer. They were married in 1842 over her family’s objections and had four sons. Only one lived to adulthood. The deep melancholy that pervaded the Lincoln family, with occasional detours into outright madness, is in some ways sourced in their close relationship with death.

Lincoln, a self-described "prairie lawyer," focused on his all-embracing law practice in the early 1850s after one term in Congress from 1847 to 1849. He joined the new Republican party—and the ongoing argument over sectionalism—in 1856. A series of heated debates in 1858 with Stephen A. Douglas , the sponsor of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act , over slavery and its place in the United States forged Lincoln into a prominent figure in national politics. Lincoln’s anti-slavery platform made him extremely unpopular with Southerners and his nomination for President in 1860 enraged them.

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln won the presidential election without the support of a single Southern state. Talk of secession, bandied about since the 1830s, took on a serious new tone. The Civil War was not entirely caused by Lincoln’s election, but the election was one of the primary reasons the war broke out the following year.

Lincoln’s decision to fight rather than to let the Southern states secede was not based on his feelings towards slavery. Rather, he felt it was his sacred duty as President of the United States to preserve the Union at all costs. His first inaugural address was an appeal to the rebellious states, seven of which had already seceded, to rejoin the nation. His first draft of the speech ended with an ominous message: "Shall it be peace, or the sword?"

The Civil War began with the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter , South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Fort Sumter, situated in the Charleston Harbour, was a Union outpost in the newly seceded Confederate territory. Lincoln, learning that the Fort was running low on food, sent supplies to reinforce the soldiers there. The Southern navy repulsed the supply convoy. After this repulse, the Southern navy fired the first shot of the war at Fort Sumter and the Federal defenders surrendered after a 34-hour long battle.

Throughout the war, Lincoln struggled to find capable generals for his armies. As commander-in-chief, he legally held the highest rank in the United States armed forces, and he diligently exercised his authority through strategic planning, weapons testing, and the promotion and demotion of officers. McDowell , Fremont, McClellan , Pope , McClellan again, Buell , Burnside , Rosecrans --all of these men and more withered under Lincoln's watchful eye as they failed to bring him success on the battlefield.

He did not issue his famous Emancipation Proclamation until January 1, 1863 after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam . The Emancipation Proclamation, which was legally based on the President’s right to seize the property of those in rebellion against the State, only freed slaves in Southern states where Lincoln’s forces had no control. Nevertheless, it changed the tenor of the war, making it, from the Northern point of view, a fight both to preserve the Union and to end slavery.

In 1864, Lincoln ran again for President. After years of war, he feared he would not win. Only in the final months of the campaign did the exertions of Ulysses S. Grant , the quiet general now in command of all of the Union armies, begin to bear fruit. A string of heartening victories buoyed Lincoln's ticket and contributed significantly to his re-election. In his second inauguration speech , March 4, 1865, he set the tone he intended to take when the war finally ended. His one goal, he said, was “lasting peace among ourselves.” He called for “malice towards none” and “charity for all.” The war ended only a month later.

The Lincoln administration did more than just manage the Civil War, although its reverberations could still be felt in a number of policies. The Revenue Act of 1862 established the United States' first income tax, largely to pay the costs of total war. The Morrill Act of 1862 established the basis of the state university system in this country, while the Homestead Act, also passed in 1862, encouraged settlement of the West by offering 160 acres of free land to settlers. Lincoln also created the Department of Agriculture and formally instituted the Thanksgiving holiday. Internationally, he navigated the "Trent Affair," a diplomatic crisis regarding the seizure of a British ship carrying Confederate envoys, in such a way as to quell the saber-rattling overtures coming from Britain as well as the United States. In another spill-over from the war, Lincoln restricted the civil liberties of due process and freedom of the press.

On April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln was shot by Confederate sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth. The assassination was part of a larger plot to eliminate the Northern government that also left Secretary of State William Seward grievously injured. Lincoln died the following day, and with him the hope of reconstructing the nation without bitterness.

Photograph portrait of a man with a beard in a suit

Noah Brooks

John L. Burns

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A Historian Makes Peace With Her Own History

It took Doris Kearns Goodwin a while to adjust to leaving the Concord, Mass., farmhouse she shared with her husband. But Boston has its compensations.

At Home With Doris Kearns Goodwin

View Slide Show ›

By Joanne Kaufman

After Doris Kearns Goodwin’s husband died nearly six years ago, the couple’s home, a 19th-century farmhouse in Concord, Mass., no longer felt right.

“We were there for 20 years,” said Ms. Kearns Goodwin, 81, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian whose new book, “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s,” will be published April 16.

“It was a house we had loved, and a house that in many ways we had built together,” she continued, referring to assorted refinements, including the three-car garage that became a library and the addition of a tower inspired by her husband’s fascination with Galileo.

There was a gently gurgling fountain in the backyard, a curved wooden bench, abundant flowering plants and a pond populated with koi. Inside were books — some 10,000 of them — arranged by category and subject matter, and dispersed to shelves in almost every room. “All that we loved was there,” Ms. Kearns Goodwin said.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s hands holding letters and other documents she used as sources for her new book.

Suddenly, though, the house felt too big. And everywhere she turned she saw her husband of 42 years, Richard N. Goodwin , the brilliant, rumpled Zelig-like figure who, in his 20s, was a special assistant to President John F. Kennedy and forged an enduring friendship with Jackie Kennedy and, in his 30s, was a speechwriter and adviser for President Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy. “Mr. Goodwin called himself a voice of the 1960s, and with justification,” noted his obituary in The New York Times.

“One of my sons lives in Concord, and knowing how hard it was for me, came to stay, and brought my two granddaughters,” Ms. Kearns Goodwin said. “But I just missed Dick too much, so I decided to put the house on the market.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin, 81

Occupation: Historian, biographer

Speaking volumes: “I made so many mistakes when I was choosing what books to give away. I kept a lot of biographies, but there are so many I missed. Now I keep saying, ‘Where’s that book?’”

Moving to nearby Boston was an easy call. “I had actually wanted to move to the city when Dick and I got married,” she said. “I grew up on Long Island and loved New York. Concord was our great compromise.”

The youngest of her three sons, Joe, had settled with his family in a high-rise condominium, “so I knew the building and loved it,” said Ms. Kearns Goodwin, who bought a three-bedroom apartment with panoramic views of Beantown two floors below her son in 2019. There she wrote “An Unfinished Love Story,” a braiding of memoir, biography and history.

Ms. Kearns Goodwin’s primary sources were the 300 (and counting) boxes of letters, postcards, documents, diaries, newspaper clippings, photos and other ephemera that Dick Goodwin amassed during the middle years of the 20th century, unceremoniously shoved into storage units, basements and a barn, and then, more than 50 years later, retrieved cache by cache and shared with his very eager wife.

“I was really excited to see them, just as a historian. They had all the elements of what you want in an archive,” Ms. Kearns Goodwin said. “And they were from the ’60s, the decade I really wanted to know more about.”

A cancer diagnosis and the subsequent debilitating — futile — treatment got in the way of Mr. Goodwin’s plans to chronicle those turbulent times. After his death, Ms. Kearns Goodwin took up the project.

She had the source material, but she also needed the setting: a recreation of her Concord study in her new condo. The mise en scène included a nicely worn blue leather sofa, a low chestnut table with plenty of room for books, a side table and the rug that Ms. Kearns Goodwin brought back from Morocco when she attended the 40th anniversary of the Casablanca Conference, a 1943 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

“It was the only way I could work,” Ms. Kearns Goodwin said. “It was like my talisman, in a certain sense. To have my little nook, I could feel I was still in Concord, though I was in a different room in a different building.”

Her fans will likely be familiar with the bookcase behind the sofa; it’s visible when she is interviewed from home. She consistently scores a 10 on Room Rater , at least in part because she decorously refrains from displaying her own publications.

Other pieces from the Concord house are scattered around the apartment — among them, several Persian rugs and an octagonal Indian coffee table. The bookcase that was in her old foyer sits in the condo’s entryway. Now, as then, it contains first editions and a miniature reproduction of the Revolutionary War Battle of Lexington and Concord, on the North Bridge. Sometimes her 5-year-old grandson plays with the toy soldiers, Ms. Kearns Goodwin said, as she adjusted the orientation of the tiny bridge.

The table from Mr. Goodwin’s study, now a display space for family photos, sits near the large windows in the living room. Nearby, a specially made plinth holds a replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s life-size bust of Abraham Lincoln, a sculpture she received when she won the 2006 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for her book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.”

Framed photos of Ms. Kearns Goodwin with President Johnson and President Obama, and of Mr. Goodwin with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, hang on a wall in the entryway. Visitors should allow themselves extra time to gape and to stutter out frequently asked questions. Extra credit to those who can act convincingly blasé when Ms. Kearns Goodwin hands them the engraved Cartier cuff links that Jackie gave Mr. Goodwin as a gift, or when she points out the baseball autographed by Don Larsen , who pitched the only perfect game in postseason history, in the fall of 1956.

Books are everywhere: on tables, on sculptural vertical stands and in bookcases custom-made to look like the shelves in Concord.

When Ms. Kearns Goodwin began the process of moving out of her house, culling the collection — 5,000 volumes had to go — became a sad obsession. Fortunately, many found a new home at the Concord Free Public Library in a designated room: the Goodwin Forum. “That meant that the books, my buddies, would still be around,” she said.

For two years after she moved to Boston, she compulsively — one might say masochistically — replayed the video that was commissioned (complete with meditative piano accompaniment) to sell her house. “I don’t know what I was doing to myself,” she said ruefully. “I’d watch and start sobbing. And each time I went back to Concord I felt sad.”

Since then, she has befriended several residents of the building, to say nothing of the valet, the doormen and the concierge. “They’re all my buddies,” said Ms. Kearns Goodwin, who, you feel pretty certain, makes a new buddy or three on an elevator ride from her apartment to the lobby.

When she lived in Concord, it was, frankly, a schlep to come into Boston to go to the symphony or the theater. “Now I can just decide at the last minute to go,” she said. “It’s definitely a different phase of my life.”

It’s been a while since she has watched the video. And she no longer feels undone when she visits Concord. That unhappiness, as Ms. Kearns Goodwin herself might say, is history.

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The 15 Best Books on President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood. No other narrative account of Abraham Lincoln's life has inspired such widespread and lasting acclaim as Charnwood's Abraham Lincoln: A Biography. Written by a native of England and originally published in 1916, the biography is a rare blend of beautiful prose and profound historical insight.
Ten Best Abraham Lincoln Biographies
Abraham Lincoln books far outnumber those about any other US president. Here are ten of the best Lincoln biographies …. 1. Lincoln. by David Herbert Donald. Many critics agree that if you are only going to read one Abraham Lincoln biography this is the one to read….
Best Books About Abraham Lincoln (108 books)
newest ». post a comment ». 108 books based on 111 votes: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lincoln by David Herbert Donald, Manhunt: ...
The best books on Abraham Lincoln
1 Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer. 2 Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words by Douglas L Wilson. 3 Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America by Garry Wills. 4 Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory by Harold Holzer. 5 They Knew Lincoln by John E Washington.
Best Books (And Surprising Insights) On Lincoln : NPR
Battle Cry Of Freedom. By James M. McPherson. Purchase. But Lincoln's political persona is but one dimension of the man. Andy Ferguson, senior editor of The Weekly Standard and author of Land of ...
The Best Books on President Lincoln
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (2003) and Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (2008) by James M. McPherson. Though it is not a biography of Lincoln, Battle Cry of Freedom ...
Carl Sandburg
Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 - July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916 ...
Abraham Lincoln
Now in paperback, this award-winning biography has been hailed as the definitive portrait of Lincoln. Named One of the 10 Top Lincoln Books by Chicago Tribune Named One of the 5 Best Books of 2009 by The Atlantic Winner, 2008 PROSE Award for Best Book in U.S. History and Biography/Autobiography, Association of American Publishers
Abraham Lincoln
Key events in the life of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln (born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky, U.S.—died April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.) was the 16th president of the United States (1861-65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought about the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln: A Biography
Long considered a classic, Benjamin P. Thomas's Abraham Lincoln: A Biography takes an incisive look at one of American history's greatest figures. Originally published in 1952 to wide acclaim, this eloquent account rises above previously romanticized depictions of the sixteenth president to reveal the real Lincoln: a complex, shrewd, and dynamic individual whose exceptional life has long ...
The Best Biographies of Abraham Lincoln
- Benjamin Thomas's "Abraham Lincoln: A Biography" Best "Non-Traditional" Lincoln Biography: ... After Goodwin, I read Ida Tarbell's 4 vol. set on "The Life Of Abraham Lincoln" written in 1895 and it was like reading the Lincoln portion of Goodwin's all over again. I was really surprised how closely Goodwin followed Tarbell ...
'Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times,' by David S. Reynolds: An Excerpt
In a letter written on April 14, 1865, the last day of his life, Lincoln said that he wanted to create "a Union of hearts and hands as well as of States." That had long been his goal.
Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg
"Abraham Lincoln: The War Years" is a four-volume, 2,400 page biography focused on Lincoln's presidency and death. Written by Carl Sandburg and published in 1939, it was published about a dozen years after Sandburg's two-volume "Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years" covering the first five decades of Lincoln's life.
Abraham Lincoln
This award-winning biography has been hailed as the definitive portrait of Lincoln. Named One of the 5 Best Books of 2009 by The Atlantic Named One of the 10 Top Lincoln Books by Chicago Tribune ... In the first multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the ...
11 Books About Abraham Lincoln
Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln, a 1995 biography, this collection of 12 essays takes a fresh look at Lincoln's legacy and reputation, as it wades through the myths that have sometimes complicated our view of Lincoln.Donald digs into the complex relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his law partner and biographer, William Herndon, as well as Lincoln's wife, Mary.
David S. Reynold's Book 'Abe' Reveals New Information About Lincoln
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with historian David S. Reynolds about his biography of Abraham Lincoln entitled Abe. In it, the acclaimed author reveals new information about the 16th president.
Abraham Lincoln: A Complete Biography
Godfrey Rathbone Benson. Godfrey Rathbone Benson, 1st Baron Charnwood (6 November 1864 - 3 February 1945) was a British author, academic, Liberal politician and philanthropist. Benson was born in Alresford, Hampshire, the son of William Benson, a barrister, and Elizabeth Soulsby Smith. He was educated at Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford.
Abraham Lincoln: Biography, U.S. President, Abolitionist
Abraham Lincoln was the 16 th president of the United States, serving from 1861 to 1865, and is regarded as one of America's greatest heroes due to his roles in guiding the Union through the ...
American poet, biographer and journalist who won three ...
American poet, biographer and journalist who won three Pulitzer Prizes including one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. Today's crossword puzzle clue is a general knowledge one: American poet, biographer and journalist who won three Pulitzer Prizes including one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.We will try to find the right answer to this particular crossword clue.
Bibliography of Abraham Lincoln
This bibliography of Abraham Lincoln is a comprehensive list of written and published works about or by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States.In terms of primary sources containing Lincoln's letters and writings, scholars rely on The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy Basler, and others. It only includes writings by Lincoln, and omits incoming correspondence.
President Abraham Lincoln Biography
War & Affiliation Civil War / Union. Date of Birth - Death February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865. Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven and he grew up on the edge of the frontier. He had very little formal education, but ...
The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. Random House Publishing Group, Jun 13, 2012 - History - 928 pages. Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of all American presidents, left us a vast legacy of writings, some of which are among the most famous in our history. Lincoln was a marvelous writer—from the humblest letter to his great ...
The every-day life of Abraham Lincoln
The every-day life of Abraham Lincoln : a biography from an entirely new standpoint, with fresh and invaluable material by Browne, Francis F. (Francis Fisher), 1843-1913. Publication date 1886 Topics Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865, Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865, Presidents Publisher
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on Her New Home and Book
Nearby, a specially made plinth holds a replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens's life-size bust of Abraham Lincoln, a sculpture she received when she won the 2006 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for her ...

The 15 Best Books on President Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln at Gettysburg by Gary Wills

Lincoln’s Sword by Douglas L. Wilson

The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner

Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer

A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White

Tried by War by James M. McPherson

Honor’s Voice by Douglas L. Wilson

Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood

Lincoln’s Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Lincoln at Cooper Union by Harold Holzer

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years by Carl Sandberg

We Are Lincoln Men by David Herbert Donald

The Lincolns: Portraits of a Marriage by Daniel Mark

Ten Best Abraham Lincoln Biographies

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of Lincoln biographies ? Don’t know where to start ?

1. Lincoln by David Herbert Donald.

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History Books » American History » Books on American Presidents

Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer

Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words by Douglas L Wilson

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America by Garry Wills

Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory by Harold Holzer

They Knew Lincoln by John E Washington

1 Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer

The Best Books on President Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln

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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory

Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History

Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point

Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer

366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency

Mr. Lincoln Goes to War

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