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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

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 !

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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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History for Everyone

The 20 Best Books about Abraham Lincoln

It’s not easy to narrow down the list of 16,000 books about Lincoln to just twenty, but we tried. Get to know more about the 16 th US president, and see for yourself why the man is so revered by many. This list of the 20 best books about Abraham Lincoln will give you a good dose of rich history, valuable facts, and interesting info that will surely satisfy the history buff in you.

NOTE: As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln 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.”

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Leadership tells the story of how they all collided (Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson) with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others. Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?”

The President and the Freedom Fighter: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Their Battle to Save America’s Soul by Brian Kilmeade

“Abraham Lincoln was White, born impoverished on a frontier farm. Frederick Douglass was Black, a child of slavery who had risked his life escaping to freedom in the North. Neither man had a formal education, and neither had had an easy path to influence. No one would have expected them to become friends—or to transform the country. But Lincoln and Douglass believed in their nation’s greatness. They were determined to make the grand democratic experiment live up to its ideals.”

The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America’s 16th President – and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch

“The conspirators were part of a white supremacist secret society that didn’t want an abolitionist in the White House. They planned an elaborate scheme to assassinate the President-elect in Baltimore as Lincoln’s inauguration train passed through, en route to the nation’s capital. The plot was investigated by famed detective Allan Pinkerton, who infiltrated the group with undercover agents, including Kate Warne, one of the first female private detectives in America.”

Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times by Donald T. Phillips

“Only ten days before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office in 1861, the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union, taking all Federal agencies, forts, and arenas within their territory. To make matters worse, Lincoln, who was elected by a minority of the popular vote, was thought of by his own advisors as nothing more than a gawky second-rate country lawyer with no leadership experience.”

Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington 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.”

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

“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.”

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.”

Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times by David S. Reynolds

“It was a country growing up and being pulled apart at the same time, with a democratic popular culture that reflected the country’s contradictions. Lincoln’s lineage was considered auspicious by Emerson, Whitman, and others who prophesied that a new man from the West would emerge to balance North and South. From New England Puritan stock on his father’s side and Virginia Cavalier gentry on his mother’s, Lincoln was linked by blood to the central conflict of the age. And an enduring theme of his life, Reynolds shows, was his genius for striking a balance between opposing forces. Lacking formal schooling but with an unquenchable thirst for self-improvement, Lincoln had a talent for wrestling and bawdy jokes that made him popular with his peers, even as his appetite for poetry and prodigious gifts for memorization set him apart from them through his childhood, his years as a lawyer, and his entrance into politics.”

The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations by Abraham Lincoln and Bob Blaisdell

“The most eloquent of American presidents, Lincoln seemed to have a comment — sagacious or humorous — on just about anything that mattered. This concise compendium offers his astute observations on a variety of subjects—from women to warfare.”

Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk

“Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded the sixteenth president’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 record, 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.”

With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen B. Oates

“Oates masterfully charts, with the pacing of a novel, Lincoln’s rise from bitter poverty in America’s midwestern frontier to become a self-made success in business, law, and regional politics. The second half of this riveting work examines his legendary leadership on the national stage as president during one of the country’s most tumultuous and bloody periods, the Civil War years, which concluded tragically with Lincoln’s assassination.”

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery 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.”

Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Achorn

“Edward Achorn reveals the nation’s capital on that momentous day―with its mud, sewage, and saloons, its prostitutes, spies, reporters, social-climbing spouses and power-hungry politicians―as a microcosm of all the opposing forces that had driven the country apart. A host of characters, unknown and famous, had converged on Washington―from grievously wounded Union colonel Selden Connor in a Washington hospital and the embarrassingly drunk new vice president, Andrew Johnson, to poet-journalist Walt Whitman; from soldiers’ advocate Clara Barton and African American leader and Lincoln critic-turned-admirer Frederick Douglass (who called the speech “a sacred effort”) to conflicted actor John Wilkes Booth―all swirling around the complex figure of Lincoln.”

Lincoln and the Fight for Peace by John Avlon

“The power of Lincoln’s personal example in the closing days of the war offers a portrait of a peacemaker. He did not demonize people he disagreed with. He used humor, logic, and scripture to depolarize bitter debates. Balancing moral courage with moderation, Lincoln believed that decency could be the most practical form of politics, but he understood that people were more inclined to listen to reason when greeted from a position of strength. Ulysses S. Grant’s famously generous terms of surrender to General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox that April were an expression of a president’s belief that a soft peace should follow a hard war.”

The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution by James Oakes

“Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action―in the western territories, in the District of Columbia, over the slave trade―they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He attempted to persuade states to abolish slavery by supporting gradual abolition with compensation for slaveholders and the colonization of free Blacks abroad.”

Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President by Ronald C. White

“Now, renowned Lincoln historian Ronald C. White walks readers through twelve of Lincoln’s most important private notes, showcasing our greatest president’s brilliance and empathy, but also his very human anxieties and ambitions. We look over Lincoln’s shoulder as he grapples with the problem of slavery, attempting to find convincing rebuttals to those who supported the evil institution (“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”); prepares for his historic debates with Stephen Douglas; expresses his private feelings after a defeated bid for a Senate seat (“With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure”); voices his concerns about the new Republican Party’s long-term prospects; develops an argument for national unity amidst a secession crisis that would ultimately rend the nation in two; and, for a president many have viewed as not religious, develops a sophisticated theological reflection in the midst of the Civil War (“it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party”). Additionally, in a historic first, all 111 Lincoln notes are transcribed in the appendix, a gift to scholars and Lincoln buffs alike.”

A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln by Sidney Blumenthal

“The first of a multivolume history of Lincoln as a political genius – from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, his assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as “a slave”, to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln.”

Lincoln’s Mentors: The Education of a Leader by Michael J. Gerhardt

“As Michael J. Gerhardt reveals, Lincoln’s reemergence followed the same path he had taken before, in which he read voraciously and learned from the successes, failures, oratory, and political maneuvering of a surprisingly diverse handful of men, some of whom he had never met but others of whom he knew intimately—Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, John Todd Stuart, and Orville Browning. From their experiences and his own, Lincoln learned valuable lessons on leadership, mastering party politics, campaigning, conventions, understanding and using executive power, managing a cabinet, speechwriting and oratory, and—what would become his most enduring legacy—developing policies and rhetoric to match a constitutional vision that spoke to the monumental challenges of his time.”

Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War by Tom Wheeler

“Abraham Lincoln’s two great legacies to history—his extraordinary power as a writer and his leadership during the Civil War—come together in this close study of the President’s use of the telegraph. Invented less than two decades before he entered office, the telegraph came into its own during the Civil War. In a jewel–box of historical writing, Wheeler captures Lincoln as he adapted his folksy rhetorical style to the telegraph, creating an intimate bond with his generals that would ultimately help win the war.”

For further reading about Abraham Lincoln, here are a few more that are worth checking out:

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson

“The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history–the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry troops on a wild, 12-day chase from the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.”

Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln Save the Union by Niall O’Dowd

“When he was voted into the White House, Lincoln surrounded himself with Irish staff, much to the chagrin of a senior aide who complained about the Hibernian cabal. And the Irish would repay Lincoln’s faith—their numbers and courage would help swing the Civil War in his favor, and among them would be some of his best generals and staunchest advocates.”

Lincoln’s Battle with God: A President’s Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America by Stephen Mansfield

“Abraham Lincoln is the most beloved of all U.S. presidents. He freed the slaves, gave the world some of its most beautiful phrases, and redefined the meaning of America. He did all of this with wisdom, compassion, and wit. Yet, throughout his life, Lincoln fought with God. In his early years in Illinois, he rejected even the existence of God and became the village atheist. In time, this changed but still he wrestled with the truth of the Bible, preachers, doctrines, the will of God, the providence of God, and then, finally, God’s purposes in the Civil War. Still, on the day he was shot, Lincoln said he longed to go to Jerusalem to walk in the Savior’s steps.”

Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War by Roger Lowenstein

“Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Abraham Lincoln and Mexico: A History of Courage, Intrigue and Unlikely Friendships by Michael Hogan

“This book by a noted Ph.D. historian is one of the best books available about historical relations between the United States and Mexico. It shines new light on reasons for the US invasion of Mexico in 1846, opposition by Abraham Lincoln and other politicians to the unjustified and unconstitutional decision by President Polk to go to war, the importance of the ensuing war against Mexico, the resulting territorial seizures by the United States, the impact both nationally and internationally to both countries, the troubling legacy even today, and the result of silences that have been pervasive over the years regarding this conflict. It examines all aspects of this history based on actual documents in government, university, and private institutions in both the US and Mexico, including citations to these documents and the complete text for many of them in the Appendix.”

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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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

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 7, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Abraham Lincoln , a self-taught lawyer, legislator and vocal opponent of slavery, was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln proved to be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader: His Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for slavery’s abolition, while his Gettysburg Address stands as one of the most famous pieces of oratory in American history. 

In April 1865, with the Union on the brink of victory, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln’s assassination made him a martyr to the cause of liberty, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.

Abraham Lincoln's Childhood and Early Life

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Nancy and Thomas Lincoln in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky . His family moved to southern Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s formal schooling was limited to three brief periods in local schools, as he had to work constantly to support his family.

In 1830, his family moved to Macon County in southern Illinois , and Lincoln got a job working on a river flatboat hauling freight down the Mississippi River to New Orleans . After settling in the town of New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper and a postmaster, Lincoln became involved in local politics as a supporter of the Whig Party , winning election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834.

Like his Whig heroes Henry Clay and Daniel Webster , Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery to the territories, and had a grand vision of the expanding United States, with a focus on commerce and cities rather than agriculture.

Did you know? The war years were difficult for Abraham Lincoln and his family. After his young son Willie died of typhoid fever in 1862, the emotionally fragile Mary Lincoln, widely unpopular for her frivolity and spendthrift ways, held seances in the White House in the hopes of communicating with him, earning her even more derision.

Lincoln taught himself law, passing the bar examination in 1836. The following year, he moved to the newly named state capital of Springfield. For the next few years, he worked there as a lawyer and served clients ranging from individual residents of small towns to national railroad lines.

He met Mary Todd , a well-to-do Kentucky belle with many suitors (including Lincoln’s future political rival, Stephen Douglas ), and they married in 1842. The Lincolns went on to have four children together, though only one would live into adulthood: Robert Todd Lincoln (1843–1926), Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), William Wallace Lincoln (1850–1862) and Thomas “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871).

Abraham Lincoln Enters Politics

Lincoln won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846 and began serving his term the following year. As a congressman, Lincoln was unpopular with many Illinois voters for his strong stance against the Mexican-American War. Promising not to seek reelection, he returned to Springfield in 1849.

Events conspired to push him back into national politics, however: Douglas, a leading Democrat in Congress, had pushed through the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which declared that the voters of each territory, rather than the federal government, had the right to decide whether the territory should be slave or free.

On October 16, 1854, Lincoln went before a large crowd in Peoria to debate the merits of the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Douglas, denouncing slavery and its extension and calling the institution a violation of the most basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence .

With the Whig Party in ruins, Lincoln joined the new Republican Party–formed largely in opposition to slavery’s extension into the territories–in 1856 and ran for the Senate again that year (he had campaigned unsuccessfully for the seat in 1855 as well). In June, Lincoln delivered his now-famous “house divided” speech, in which he quoted from the Gospels to illustrate his belief that “this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.”

Lincoln then squared off against Douglas in a series of famous debates; though he lost the Senate election, Lincoln’s performance made his reputation nationally. 

Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Presidential Campaign

Lincoln’s profile rose even higher in early 1860 after he delivered another rousing speech at New York City’s Cooper Union. That May, Republicans chose Lincoln as their candidate for president, passing over Senator William H. Seward of New York and other powerful contenders in favor of the rangy Illinois lawyer with only one undistinguished congressional term under his belt.

In the general election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the northern Democrats; southern Democrats had nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, while John Bell ran for the brand new Constitutional Union Party. With Breckenridge and Bell splitting the vote in the South, Lincoln won most of the North and carried the Electoral College to win the White House .

He built an exceptionally strong cabinet composed of many of his political rivals, including Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates and Edwin M. Stanton .

Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

After years of sectional tensions, the election of an antislavery northerner as the 16th president of the United States drove many southerners over the brink. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated as 16th U.S. president in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America .

Lincoln ordered a fleet of Union ships to supply the federal Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April. The Confederates fired on both the fort and the Union fleet, beginning the Civil War . Hopes for a quick Union victory were dashed by defeat in the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) , and Lincoln called for 500,000 more troops as both sides prepared for a long conflict.

While the Confederate leader Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, Mexican War hero and former secretary of war, Lincoln had only a brief and undistinguished period of service in the Black Hawk War (1832) to his credit. He surprised many when he proved to be a capable wartime leader, learning quickly about strategy and tactics in the early years of the Civil War, and about choosing the ablest commanders.

General George McClellan , though beloved by his troops, continually frustrated Lincoln with his reluctance to advance, and when McClellan failed to pursue Robert E. Lee’s retreating Confederate Army in the aftermath of the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln removed him from command.

During the war, Lincoln drew criticism for suspending some civil liberties, including the right of habeas corpus , but he considered such measures necessary to win the war.

Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address

Shortly after the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation , which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the enslaved people in the rebellious states not under federal control, but left those in the border states (loyal to the Union) in bondage.

Though Lincoln once maintained that his “paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery,” he nonetheless came to regard emancipation as one of his greatest achievements and would argue for the passage of a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery (eventually passed as the 13th Amendment after his death in 1865).

Two important Union victories in July 1863—at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania—finally turned the tide of the war. General George Meade missed the opportunity to deliver a final blow against Lee’s army at Gettysburg, and Lincoln would turn by early 1864 to the victor at Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant , as supreme commander of the Union forces.

In November 1863, Lincoln delivered a brief speech (just 272 words) at the dedication ceremony for the new national cemetery at Gettysburg. Published widely, the Gettysburg Address eloquently expressed the war’s purpose, harking back to the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence and the pursuit of human equality. It became the most famous speech of Lincoln’s presidency, and one of the most widely quoted speeches in history.

Abraham Lincoln Wins 1864 Presidential Election

In 1864, Lincoln faced a tough reelection battle against the Democratic nominee, the former Union General George McClellan, but Union victories in battle (especially General William T. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September) swung many votes the president’s way. In his second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1865, Lincoln addressed the need to reconstruct the South and rebuild the Union: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”

As Sherman marched triumphantly northward through the Carolinas after staging his March to the Sea from Atlanta, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House , Virginia , on April 9. Union victory was near, and Lincoln gave a speech on the White House lawn on April 11, urging his audience to welcome the southern states back into the fold. Tragically, Lincoln would not live to help carry out his vision of Reconstruction .

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

On the night of April 14, 1865, the actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president’s box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot him point-blank in the back of the head. Lincoln was carried to a boardinghouse across the street from the theater, but he never regained consciousness, and died in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865.

Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr. On April 21, 1865, a train carrying his coffin left Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train traveled through 180 cities and seven states so mourners could pay homage to the fallen president.

Today, Lincoln’s birthday—alongside the birthday of George Washington —is honored on President’s Day , which falls on the third Monday of February.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.”

“I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”

“I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”

“I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.”

“This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all—to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.”

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

HISTORY Vault: Abraham Lincoln

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Best Books About Abraham Lincoln

It is often said that more words have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any other person in history, except for Jesus and Shakespeare. This is especially true when it comes to books about Abraham Lincoln.

In fact, according to an article in the New York Times, no one knows exactly how many books about Lincoln have been published.

Yet, some people have ventured to guess, such as one prominent book collector who estimates there have been at least 7,000 books published on Lincoln. Yet, Bookmarks Magazine reports a much higher number of at least 16,000 books.

With so many books to choose from it can be hard to know which books to read or where to start. That’s why I’ve compiled a short list of some of the best books about Abraham Lincoln.

Keep in mind, these aren’t the only Lincoln books that you should read, but if your time and/or money is limited, these are definitely the must-read Lincoln books.

The books listed here are best-sellers on the topic, have received great reviews from critics and historians, have won numerous literary awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize and the Lincoln Award, and have great reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads.

The following is a list of the best books about Abraham Lincoln:

(Disclaimer: This article contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Published in 1995, the book chronicles Lincoln’s slow and gradual climb from a rural rail splitter to President of the United States.

The book not only highlights the events of Lincoln’s life but also the development of Lincoln’s personality and character and, in doing so, explores what made it possible for someone so inexperienced and unprepared to become the great leader that he did.

While many Lincoln biographies also discuss the events of the Civil War , the economic and social issues of the time and the general history of the 19th century, this book focuses exclusively on Lincoln himself, his actions, attitude and etc. The book has been described by many critics as the quintessential Lincoln biography.

Geoffrey C. West reviewed the book for the New York Times and described it as compelling and well-researched:

“But Mr. Donald’s ‘Lincoln’ is so lucid and richly researched, so careful and compelling, that it is hard to imagine a more satisfying life of our most admired and least understood President, at least for the foreseeable future…Mr. Donald’s life of Lincoln is different and therefore more rewarding; it unrolls, as Lincoln’s real life did, as a series of abrupt twists and turns, triumphs and setbacks, after any one of which, had he made the wrong choice, he would never have had his chance at greatness.”

Historynet.com declared the book “the finest single volume on Lincoln’s life yet attempted, a work that is a monumental achievement in scholarship…Donald’s Lincoln will undoubtedly displace popular Lincoln biographies by Benjamin P. Thomas and Stephen B. Oates as the definitive modern study.”

The website BestPresidentialBios.com says that although they are not sure if the book is the best single-volume biography ever written on Abraham Lincoln that many critics claim it is, the site does state that it “is nevertheless extremely meritorious.”

David Herbert Donald, who died in 2009, was a history author who wrote numerous books about Lincoln such as Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era; We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends; and Lincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincolns Family Life.

Donald won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for his book Charles Sumner and the Coming War and won the Pulitzer Prize again in 1988 for his book Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. Donald was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and won the Order of Lincoln award from the State of Illinois in 2008.

Published in 2005, this best-selling book discusses Lincoln’s presidential cabinet, which was made up of Lincoln’s former political rivals, and explores how they helped shape one of the most significant presidencies in American history.

The heart of the book is about how Lincoln persuaded his former rivals to let go of their grudges against him and become his allies in order to fight for the greater good of the country, as Goodwin explains in the introduction:

“This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left unattended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes.”

Fellow Lincoln biographer, James McPherson, reviewed the book for the New York Times Book Review and praised it as “An elegant, incisive study….Goodwin has brilliantly described how Lincoln forged a team that preserved a nation and freed America from the curse of slavery.”

Jay Winik, of the Wall Street Journal, also reviewed the book and said it was “Endlessly absorbing….[A] lovingly rendered and masterfully fashioned book” while John Rhodehamel, of the Los Angeles Times, declared it “Splendid, beautifully written….Goodwin has brilliantly woven scores of contemporary accounts…into a fluid narrative….This is the most richly detailed account of the Civil War presidency to appear in many years.”

Publisher’s Weekly had a more lukewarm review of the book, stating:

“Goodwin seeks to illuminate what she interprets as a miraculous event: Lincoln’s smooth (and, in her view, rather sudden) transition from underwhelming one-term congressman and prairie lawyer to robust chief executive during a time of crisis…Goodwin’s spotlighting of the president’s three former rivals tends to undercut that Lincoln’s most essential Cabinet-level contacts were not with Seward, Chase and Bates, but rather with secretaries of war Simon Cameron and Edwin Stanton, and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. These criticisms aside, Goodwin supplies capable biographies of the gentlemen on whom she has chosen to focus, and ably highlights the sometimes tangled dynamics of their ‘team’ within the larger assemblage of Lincoln’s full war cabinet.”

Many readers and critics point out that, at 944 pages long, the book is quite detailed and is sometimes overwhelming and hard to read, yet it is very thorough and well researched.

Goodwin is a political commentator and Pulitzer-prize winning author who has written many highly acclaimed books about U.S. presidents including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; and No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.

Goodwin earned a PhD in government from Harvard University in 1968 and worked as a White House staff member during the Johnson administration. She later taught government, including a course on the American presidency, at Harvard for 10 years.

Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize for No Ordinary Time in 1995 and won the Lincoln Prize and the American History Book Prize for Team of Rivals in 2005. Goodwin is also a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission advisory board.

Published in 2009, this New York Times best-seller discusses the personal, political and moral evolution of Abraham Lincoln. White argues that Lincoln is a man of intellectual curiosity who is comfortable with ambiguity and is not afraid to think outside the box.

The book differs from many other Lincoln biographies because it argues that Lincoln wasn’t the inexperienced, unknown country lawyer that many historians depict him as and argues instead that he was an experienced politician who was popular throughout his home state of Illinois and was actually well known to national leaders.

History writer David W. Blight reviewed the book for the Washington Post and said it was a well-researched book and one of the best new books on the former president:

“How daunting it must be for any biographer to take on Lincoln’s life in this crowded literary marketplace! But this thoroughly researched book belongs on the A-list of major biographies of the tall Illinoisan; it’s a worthy companion for all who admire Lincoln’s prose and his ability to see into, and explain, America’s greatest crisis.”

The book was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Christian-Science Monitor and the St. Louis Dispatch.

White is an author who has written numerous books about Abraham Lincoln, such as Lincoln’s Greatest Speeches and The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words, as well as number of other books on American history.

Published in 1901, the book is a unique firsthand account of the life of Abraham Lincoln written by a Union general who knew Lincoln well.

In the preface for the book, Ketcham states that although there were already many biographies about Lincoln by 1901, he felt compelled to write his book because he worried that without a firsthand perspective, he felt Lincoln’s legacy would be tarnished by secondhand stories and mistruths:

“It cannot be expected that a person born after the year (say) 1855, could remember Lincoln more than as a name. Such an one’s idea are made up not from his rememberance and appreciation of events as they occurred, but from what he has read and heard about them in subsequent years.”

Bookpedia.com calls the book an enjoyable read that relies heavily on personal accounts to show a more human side of Lincoln:

“The reading takes on an extended story-telling fireside chat feeling, where you know and trust the storyteller – who happens to know the kinds of things you would be interested in knowing. An excellent read…Interestingly narrated as an admirer of his life from a first hand experience.”

John Henry Ketcham, who died in 1906, was a U.S. Representative from New York and a Union General during the Civil War.

Published in 2009, the book chronicles the events of Abraham Lincoln’s life from his childhood to his presidency and also discusses Lincoln’s legacy and why he remains so popular hundreds of years later.

The book, which is less than 100 pages long, is intended to be a stripped-down, minimalist narrative of Lincoln’s life and his achievements.

In the book’s brief preface, McPherson explains that he decided to write his book because he felt that most of the Lincoln biographies published to date are too complicated and wordy:

“Most of these are substantial works; one definitive multivolume biography runs well over a half million words. Amid this cascade of information, I believe there is room for a brief biography that captures the essential events and meaning of Lincoln’s life without oversimplification or overgeneralization.”

Fellow Lincoln writers David Herbert Donald and Ronald C. White both reviewed the book and recommended it wholeheartedly. Herbert complimented the book’s concise narrative:

“A gem. Beautifully written, it is clear, concise, and correct. This is the best, very brief, biography of our sixteenth president ever written.”

While White was impressed by McPherson’s writing style:

“Abraham Lincoln at last has found his best short biography. Jim McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian, brings his vast knowledge and lucid writing to an illumination of the life of America’s most revered President. McPherson touches more Lincoln bases than any reader might reasonably expect, winning a well-deserved accolade that less is truly more.”

James McPherson is a Professor Emeritus of American History at Princeton University. He was president of the American Historical Association in 2003 and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica.

McPherson has written numerous books about the Civil War such as Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War era; Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution; For Causes and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War; and Crossroads of Freedom. McPherson won the Pulitzer-prize for Battle Cry of Freedom and also won the Lincoln Prize for For Causes and Comrades.

Published in 1992, this Pulitzer-Prize winning book discusses Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address and the impact it had. Wills does this by analyzing the rhetoric of the speech, which he argues was so revolutionary that it changed political speech writing forever and, as a result, “all modern political prose descends from the Gettysburg Address.”

The book argues that the speech was far ahead of its time because it justified equal rights for African-Americans on the basis of the Declaration of Independence, instead of the Constitution (which didn’t even mention equal rights until it was amended after the war.)

In doing so, Wills argues that Lincoln saw the Civil War as a battle for equal rights for African-Americans and states that his famous speech eventually paved the way for the 14th amendment, which granted citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the U.S., including former slaves.

William McFeely, in his review of the book in The New York Times, was struck by its attention to the details of the speech:

“Mr. Wills is deadly serious about words. Perhaps the most striking element of this book is its intricate analysis of the rhetorical structure of the address. It is here that Lincoln is credited with achieving a ‘revolution in style.'”

Commentary Magazine also praised the book’s attention to detail and said the book solidifies Lincoln’s status as one of the greatest orators and statesmen in American history:

“The point of the book (itself a rhetorical tour de force) is to demonstrate that Lincoln was a brilliant rhetorician. That point has been made before, but never with so much attention given to the structure of Lincoln’s major speeches. Lincoln, we know, had mastered the first six books of Euclid’s Elements, and had studied grammar (at a time when grammar was studied seriously), but Wills shows how he employed its tools—antithesis, for example, and anaphora and asyndeton—to maximum advantage in the Gettysburg Address. It is the greatest American speech, and Lincoln was our greatest speechmaker; Wills succeeds in confirming our judgment of that. Without intending to do so, however, he also confirms our judgment that Lincoln was our greatest statesman.”

Garry Wills is a Emeritus Professor of History at Northwestern University. Wills is a frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review and has written over 40 books about religion and history such as James Madison (The American President Series); “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power; Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self Made Man; and Henry Adams and the Making of America.

Wills won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Lincoln at Gettysburg in 1993. He also won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Merle Curti Award for his book Inventing America in 1978.

Wills was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and was awarded the Order of Lincoln by the Governor of Illinois in 2006.

Published in 2010, the book discusses Abraham Lincoln’s views on slavery and race throughout his political career.

The book explores why Lincoln’s views on these matters changed and evolved over time and why he sometimes contradicted himself on these issues.

As Foner explains in the preface, the book is not intended to be a biography of Lincoln’s life and solely focuses on Lincoln’s role in what was called the “antislavery enterprise” of the time period, explaining that Lincoln held a relatively moderate view on the issue.

In focusing on Lincoln’s politics, Foner explains that the reader can learn more about Lincoln himself as well as more about the Civil War-era in general:

“But I believe that casting a bright, concentrated light on Lincoln and the politics of slavery – with politics defined in the broadest sense, not simply as elections and office-holding but the shaping of opinion with the extended public sphere, can illuminate his life and his era in new ways.”

David S. Reynolds reviewed the book for The New York Times and praised it for its fresh, new perspective:

“Do we need yet another book on Lincoln?… Well, yes, we do if the book is by so richly informed a commentator as Eric Foner. Foner tackles what would seem to be an obvious topic, Lincoln and slavery, and manages to cast new light on it…. Because of his broad-ranging knowledge of the 19th century, Foner is able to provide the most thorough and judicious account of Lincoln’s attitudes toward slavery that we have.”

Fellow Lincoln biographer, James M. McPherson also reviewed the book and stated that “No one else has written about [Lincoln’s] trajectory of change with such balance, fairness, depth of analysis, and lucid precision of language.”

The Library Journal dubbed it “an essential work for all Americans. In the vast library on Lincoln, Foner’s book stands out as the most sensible and sensitive reading of Lincoln’s lifetime involvement with slavery and the most insightful assessment of Lincoln’s—and indeed America’s—imperative to move toward freedom lest it be lost.”

David M. Shribman, reviewed the book for the Boston Globe and said it was “a masterwork that examines Lincoln’s passage to Gettysburg and beyond.”

Another fellow Lincoln author, Fred Kaplan, wrote a negative review of the book for the Washington Post and argued that Foner merely created a thesis to fit his narrative:

“Foner’s justification for The Fiery Trial is that ‘there is value in tracing Lincoln’s growth, as it were, forward.’ ‘As it were’ reveals a nice hesitancy or qualification that the book as a whole doesn’t maintain. Foner’s basic claim is at least an exaggeration, if not wrong. A stronger argument can be made that Lincoln hardly ‘grew at all on the issue of slavery, that he responded to changing circumstances that he did not create and that brought him into a public role in which he could not avoid taking the positions that led to the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. But Foner’s narrative almost requires that his main character develop morally. The Fiery Trial maintains this thesis despite the facts that it narrates.”

The only positive thing that Kaplan had to say about the book is that it was essentially a comprehensive record of all the previous books and sources on Lincoln and slavery, making it a basic reference guide on the topic: “this will now be the book of first convenience to go to on the subject.”

Eric Foner is a history professor at Columbia University. Foner was elected president of the American Historical Association in 2001.

Foner has written many books about Lincoln as well as the Civil War such as Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World; Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad; and A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln.

Foner won the Pulitzer-Prize, the Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln Prize for the Fiery Trial in 2011 and the book was named Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.

Originally published as six volumes in the 1930s, the book chronicles the events of Abraham Lincoln’s life starting from his early years and continuing to his presidency and assassination.

The books, which originally consisted of a two volume book titled Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and a four volume book titled Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, were later condensed into one volume. The Prairie Years covers Lincoln’s early life up until 1850 and the War Years covers the second half of his life up to his assassination.

As Sandburg explains in the preface, he knew Civil War veterans as a young child and often listened to the stories of men who knew Lincoln personally.

Upon hearing these stories, he became fascinated with Lincoln and decided to write a biography about Lincoln’s time as a country lawyer in the midwest. After writing the book, Sandburg discovered Lincoln had grown on him so much that he decided to write another book about him which then led to even more books.

The books were well received by critics and the public alike when they were published and became instant classics on the subject. Upon publication of the War Years in 1939, the New Republic Magazine reviewed it and said no other historical book could compare:

“With these four volumes Carl Sandburg completes the life of Lincoln begun in “The Prairie Years.” Taking the total achievement, there is nothing in historical literature that I know quite comparable with it.”

The website BestPresidentialbios.com says although the book is very good, the first volume, the Prairie Years doesn’t quite hold up for modern readers:

“Overall, Carl Sandburg’s ‘The Prairie Years’ is a fascinating and enjoyable cultural and literary experience, even if disappointing from a historical perspective. For many reasons it is not ideal as an introduction to Abraham Lincoln for the modern reader seeking a comprehensive, detailed and historically potent account of his life. But as a second or third source, designed to add splashes of color and flavor unavailable elsewhere, Sandburg’s work on Lincoln’s early years is quite well-suited.”

The website’s review of the War Years explains that although it is “a jewel of American history” and is “impressive in scope” it is so dense and detailed that it is a bit overwhelming at times, which might explain why the books were eventually condensed into a single volume, to make it more accessible to modern readers.

The original six volume editions are now out of print but used copies and reprints can still be purchased on Amazon and other websites.

Carl Sandburg, who died in 1967, was a poet, editor and author. Sandburg wrote many notable volumes of poetry, such as Chicago Poems and The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg as well as children’s books.

Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems The Completed Poems of Carl Sandburg in 1951 and won the Pulitzer Prize for history for his book Abraham Lincoln: The War Years in 1940.

Published in 1977, the book chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln from birth to death. Oates explained in the preface of his book, that while writing the book he became completely absorbed in Lincoln’s daily life and hoped his readers experienced the same feeling:

“I hope that my readers have a similar sensation when they put the book down. If I have done my job properly as a biographer, they will willingly suspend their knowledge of how the story ends and allow my narrative to transport them back into Lincoln’s world, where they can walk with him as his life unfolds, sharing in his humanity.”

The book became entangled in controversy in 1990 when Oates was accused of plagiarizing passages of Benjamin Thomas’ 1952 biography of Lincoln. Oates issued a rebuttal, as he states in the preface of an updated version of his book:

“After studying the allegations, I issued a public rebuttal, pointing out that Lincoln literature consists of a common body of knowledge about him, particularly his well-known early years, that has accumulated for more than a century and is in the public domain. If there are similarities between my book and Thomas’s, I said, it is because both biographies draw from that common ‘text’ or body of writing and information…In writing With Malice Toward None, to borrow Potter’s words, I took the ‘bits and pieces’ of the Lincoln biographical tradition and tried to weave it into a ‘new discourse.’”

Oates was later cleared of the plagiarism charges by the American Historical Association.

The book was well received by critics when it was published. The Chicago Tribune declared it “a superb biography” and the Washington Post said it was “The standard one-volume biography of Lincoln.” The Boston Globe said the book has been “Hailed as the best one-volume biography of Lincoln.”

According to the website PresidentialBios.com, when the book was published, it became the best Lincoln biography to date and held that title for decades until Donald’s biography was published in the 90s:

“Oates’s biography was the first comprehensive treatment of Lincoln in nearly two decades. Critically hailed, it quickly gained a reputation as ‘the’ standard Lincoln biography, replacing Benjamin Thomas’s 1952 biography in that role. Not until David Herbert Donald’s universally acclaimed ‘Lincoln’ was published in 1995 did Oates’s biography relinquish its prominence.”

Stephen B. Oates is a former history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is considered an expert on 19th century history. Oates wrote 16 history books, many of them about 19th and 20th century history, such as Let the Trumpet Soar: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr; Woman of Valor: Clara Barton of the Civil War; and the Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861.

Published in 1952, the book details the events of Abraham Lincoln’s life from his early life to his presidency.

Instead of idolizing Lincoln, the book portrays him as a balanced individual with the conviction and inner strength to lead the country.

In the preface of the book, Thomas explains that he wrote the biography because there weren’t any reliable one-volume books on Lincoln at the time:

“There has been no accurate, readable, one-volume biography for the Lincoln beginner, for the person who can devote only a small portion of his time learning about Lincoln, or for the high-school teacher or college professor who wishes to include a reasonably short life of Lincoln on his student’s reading list…So it is my hope that this book will fill a long-felt want. It is intended primarily for the reading public rather than for the expert, though I hope that the experts will approve of it. And I believe that even they will discover that it offers new interpretations and reveal many unknown facts.”

In the book’s forward, fellow Lincoln author, Michael Burlingame, wrote that he still considers Thomas’ book to be the best single-volume book on Lincoln despite all of the new biographies that have been published since:

“Published over a half a century ago, Benjamin P. Thomas’s Abraham Lincoln: A Biography remains the best single-volume life of the sixteenth president. The only other serious contender for that designation is David Herbert Donald’s 1995 biography, but as critic Jonathan Yardley rightly noted, ‘in no significant way does Donald’s Lincoln supplant Benjamin Thomas’s.’ In Yardley’s view, the Thomas biography is ‘the definitive work’ for readers ‘looking for Lincoln at once in full and brief.’ Prominent historians share Yardley’s enthusiasm. In 1999, Allen C. Guelzo, two-time winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize and author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President; Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America; and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, described Thomas’s Lincoln as ‘the finest one-volume survey biography’ of the sixteenth president. Mark E. Neely, Jr., who won the Pulitzer Prize for his monograph The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, deemed Thomas’s book ‘wonderful,’ a ‘masterpiece,’ an ‘elegant and balanced synthesis’ resting on ‘the best research’ and written in a ‘fluid and readable style.’”

Benjamin Thomas, who died in 1956, was a history professor at Birmingham-Southern College and the author of multiple books about Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln: A Biography; Lincoln, 1847–1853: Being the Day-by-Day Activities of Abraham Lincoln from January 1, 1847; Lincoln’s New Salem; and Portrait of Posterity: Lincoln and His Biographers. Thomas also served as the director and then treasurer of the Abraham Lincoln Association in 1939 and 1942.

Additional Reading: ♠ Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume One and Two by Michael Burlingame ♠ Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan ♠ Abraham Lincoln: A History, Volumes 1-10 by John M. Hay and John George Nicolay ♠ Abraham Lincoln: an Essay by Carl Schurz ♠ The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volumes One & Two by Ida M. Tarbell

Sources: Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association: Benjamin P. Thomas: quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0019.204/–benjamin-p-thomas?rgn=main;view=fulltext Best Presidential Bios: Review of Abraham Lincoln: A Biography by Benjamin Thomas: bestpresidentialbios.com/2014/04/14/review-of-abraham-lincoln-a-biography-by-benjamin-thomas/ New York Times; Call Him Elequent Abe, the Writer in Chief; Michiko Kakutani; November 2008: nytimes.com/2008/11/07/books/07book.html Chicago Tribune; Controversy Hits Accuser and Accused; Patrick T. Reardon; December 1990: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-12-11/news/9004120516_1_lincoln-scholar-plagiarism-stephen-b-oates Best Presidential Bios: Review of Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg: bestpresidentialbios.com/2014/05/24/review-of-abraham-lincoln-the-war-years-by-carl-sandburg/ New Republic; Lincolns as War Leader; Max Lerner; December 1939: newrepublic.com/article/80144/carl-sandburg-abraham-lincoln-war-leader Washington Post; Eric Foner’s Book on Lincoln and Slavery, Reviewed by Fred Kaplan; November 2010: washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112802826.html New York Times; Learning to be Lincoln; David S. Reynolds; September 2010: Commentary Magazine; Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills; Walter Berns; November 1992: commentarymagazine.com/articles/lincoln-at-gettysburg-by-garry-wills/ New York Times; How We Were Created Equal; William McFreely; June 1992: nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/wills-lincoln.html Washington Post; Abe the Intellectual; David W. Blight; February 2009: washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020503121.html Best Presidential Bios: Review of Lincoln by David Herbert Donald: bestpresidentialbios.com/2014/03/29/review-of-lincoln-by-david-herbert-donald/ History Net: Book Review: Lincoln (David Herbert Donald): historynet.com/book-review-lincoln-david-herbert-donald-cwt.htm New York Times; Before He Became a Saint; Geoffrey C. Ward; October 1995: nytimes.com/1995/10/22/books/before-he-became-a-saint.html?pagewanted=all History.net: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Book Review):historynet.com/team-of-rivals-the-political-genius-of-abraham-lincoln-book-review.htm New York Times: ‘Team of Rivals’ Friends of Abe by James McPherson: nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/team-of-rivals-friends-of-abe.html?_r=0 Business Insider; There Are About 15,000 Books on Abraham Lincoln – Here Are 7 You Should Read: businessinsider.com/best-books-on-abraham-lincoln-2015-2

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1 thought on “ Best Books About Abraham Lincoln ”

Thanks for this list! Reading Donald’s book right now, and have a couple of the others on my “reading list,” but here are some others I was unaware of. FWIW, your post reminded me of this wonderful Lincoln “monument” in DC. The photos, while impressive, just can’t quite do it justice, It must be seen in person to truly appreciate it: atlasobscura.com/places/lincoln-book-tower

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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 …

3. A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald White, Jr.

*** what is your favorite abraham lincoln biography .

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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.

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The 25 best books about Abraham Lincoln

At least 15,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln , the 16th president of the United States. If you wish to learn about the man who led the North during the American Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 then you are not going to be restricted by choice. (AbeBooks alone has more than 67,000 copies of books with ‘Abraham Lincoln’ in the title).

No-one knows exactly how many books have been written about Honest Abe but in 2012 Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership in Washington DC constructed a 34-foot pillar of unique titles about Lincoln and it contained more than 15,000 books.

Books have been written about his childhood, his politics, his wartime leadership, his married life, his death, his speeches, his generals and admirals, his writing, his mental health and his legal career. There are biographies, history books, picture books, children’s books and fictional novels based on his life.

In recent years, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin has received a great deal of attention. In 2008, the then-Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama declared, if elected, he would want “a team of rivals” in his Cabinet. “I don’t want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone,” he told Time Magazine. Obama, a keen reader, acknowledged the influence of Goodwin's book several times as he campaigned to become president.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald, published in 1996, is also widely acknowledged as one of the better biographies of the man. Manhunt by James L. Swanson is a very readable book about the murder of the president, the motives of his killer John Wilkes Booth and the desperate manhunt over 12 days.

If you want to completely shake up history, then Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith might appeal (and that’s fiction by the way). Gore Vidal also wrote a historical novel about the man.

The best books about Abraham Lincoln

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My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies

Review of “Abraham Lincoln: A Biography” by Benjamin Thomas

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by Steve in President #16 - A Lincoln

≈ 2 Comments

Abraham Lincoln , American history , Benjamin Thomas , biographies , book reviews , presidential biographies , Presidents

Oldest of the five Lincoln biographies I’ve read so far, Thomas’s “Abraham Lincoln” has aged well.  At just over five-hundred pages in length, this is not a brief read but it proves to be an enjoyable and almost effortless experience. Happily, this biography lacks page-long paragraphs of dense, academic text and yet still creates an impression of intellectual rigor.

Thomas seems to approach his task more as a storyteller than a historian. As a result, his writing style is unusually elegant, fluid, descriptive and engaging. Where another author might rush through the description of, for example, the dilapidated Illinois state capital building, Thomas lingers an extra moment in order to form a more vivid and lasting impression of the object in the reader’s mind.

Relative to more recent biographies of Lincoln I’ve read, Thomas’s provides a far better comparison of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the North and the South as they headed to war. Coverage of Lincoln’s early life, while far from exhaustive, is among the clearest and easiest to follow of any Lincoln biography I’ve encountered. And Thomas’s description of Sherman’s heated march across the deep south, though too brief, was the most colorful and detailed of any account I’ve yet seen.

The final chapter of this biography is largely (but by no means exclusively) dedicated to the author’s observations of Lincoln’s service as president, his evolution as a politician and a discussion of the qualities that made him a great, if flawed, individual. Similar observations were liberally scattered throughout the book, but nowhere did they appear as thoughtfully and forcefully as in the book’s last pages.

But Thomas is at his very best when describing the people whose lives intersected with Abraham Lincoln. He wonderfully reveals each character’s unique personality, physical attributes, strengths, flaws, eccentricities and relationship with Lincoln in a way I’ve not seen before. This is not only true of Lincoln’s friends, business partners and early advisers but also his political adversaries, military advisers and, notably, his cabinet members. Through these almost three-dimensional portraits of notables moving in his orbit, Lincoln’s world seems to come to life.

For all its strengths, Thomas’s biography is not perfect. Coverage of Lincoln’s own family, although adequate, is fairly limited and Mary Lincoln’s foibles are only sporadically evidenced. The Civil War years are nicely summarized for a reader lacking deep knowledge of the conflict, but the fractious politics which engulfed the nation’s capital during those years often seem deemphasized in favor of focus on the latest military travail.

In addition, Thomas dives less deeply into the complex politics of slavery and the evolution of Lincoln’s views than other biographers. His analysis is competent but not masterful or probing. In a similar vein, Thomas is rarely as penetrating a political scientist as other authors and often fails to pursue issues as completely as he might. Discussion of Lincoln’s cabinet selection was far less substantive (and more oversimplified) than I would have liked, and the biography was less effective than most others in portraying events such as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Republican convention and the presidential campaign of 1860.

Overall, however, there is a great deal to like about Benjamin Thomas’s biography of Lincoln. Thomas is almost always able to smooth the rough edges of history and create an interesting, easily digested story without obfuscating history’s true course. Despite its age, this biography feels sprightly and light and is one of my favorite presidential biographies in the “50-and-over” category. Benjamin Thomas’s biography of our sixteenth president is undoubtedly an excellent choice for anyone seeking an engaging, informative, wonderfully vivid but still relatively thorough introduction to Lincoln’s life.

Overall rating: 4¼ stars

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2 thoughts on “review of “abraham lincoln: a biography” by benjamin thomas”.

April 16, 2014 at 8:42 pm

A friend sent me a link to a book called “Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen, a Culinary View of Lincoln’s Life and Times.” Is a “culinary biography” on your list? 🙂

April 17, 2014 at 4:47 am

I almost thought you were joking…until I looked up the book you mentioned and saw it for myself! It might not make the “official” list I’m reading through, but now I know what I’m asking for as Fathers’ Day approaches!!

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Searching for the Real Abraham Lincoln

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By Robert W. Merry

• Published Sept. 29, 2020 Updated Nov. 2, 2021

ABE Abraham Lincoln in His Times By David S. Reynolds

Of the 16,000 books produced about Abraham Lincoln since his death 155 years ago, not one, in the view of the historian and biographer David S. Reynolds , fits the definition of a “full-scale cultural biography.” Reynolds, the author or editor of 16 books on 19th-century America, has set out to fill that void with “Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times,” a prodigious and lucidly rendered exposition of the character and thought of the 16th president as gleaned through the prism of the cultural and social forces swirling through America during his lifetime.

More character study than narrative biography, this Lincoln portrait, fully 932 pages of text, goes further than most previous studies in probing the complexities and nuances of the man: his tastes, likes, dislikes, the quality of his thinking, the evolution of his ideas — all shaped and molded by the society around him. At the same time, Reynolds succumbs to a pitfall in drawing conclusions about how particular Lincoln experiences influenced his later thoughts and actions when no evidence for such causal effects is discernible. The author employs speculative language abundantly, as when he writes within one three-page section: “must have been also saddened by,” “could not but have been moved by,” “could have exposed him to,” “must have also been aware” and “appears to have been influenced.”

It was a raucous and turbulent culture that greeted Lincoln’s birth in 1809, with a sentimental quality, certainly, but also “ablaze with sensationalism, violence and zany humor” as well as “popular exhibits full of strange, freakish images.” In tracing the multiple strains of American culture, Reynolds explores Puritan and Southern Cavalier sensibilities, frontier mores, alcohol consumption and the temperance movement, the Baptist Church, Quakerism, frontier humor, popular music, rural carnivals and P. T. Barnum, among other cultural phenomena.

[ Read an excerpt from “Abe.” ]

Lincoln embraced nearly all of it, Reynolds writes, “in an extraordinarily wide-ranging manner.” Indeed, he adds, Lincoln ultimately was able to redefine democracy “precisely because he had experienced culture in all its dimensions — from high to low, sacred to profane, conservative to radical, sentimental to subversive.”

In portraying Lincoln, Reynolds examines an intellectual trait that guided this frontier lawyer throughout most of his life and became a hallmark of his presidency (and probably his greatness) — his ability to free himself from dogma and synthesize seemingly divergent concepts into a coherent whole. Take, for example, Lincoln’s view of his own ancestry — New England Puritan on his father’s side; Southern Cavalier on his mother’s. The two regional sensibilities became so disparate that The New York Herald once declared, “There is nothing in common between them but hate.” And yet Lincoln managed to mesh those sensibilities through what Reynolds calls “a unique fusion of cultural traits,” which yielded a vision of national unity and generated a perception that he represented “a bridge across the Puritan-Cavalier gulf.”

Lincoln also managed to reconcile his “rationalist impulse” with more abstract thinking. He devoured and mastered all of Euclid’s geometric propositions, for example, during his days as an itinerant lawyer on the Illinois court circuit; Reynolds believes Euclid’s propositions about equal angles, equal sides and equal degrees actually combined with Lincoln’s rationalist outlook to help shape his views on human equality.

But another of Lincoln’s literary companions on the circuit was Edgar Allan Poe, who stirred Lincoln’s rationalist side with his elaborate tales of ratiocination but also saw limitations in the process of reason, as explained with particular acuity by Poe’s fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, in the tale “The Purloined Letter.” As Reynolds points out, in the story Dupin dismisses mathematics as a means of adducing abstract truths about morals or human motivation. “Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth,” Dupin says, to which Reynolds adds: “On this point Poe trumped Euclid.”

Lincoln’s aim, Reynolds says, was to find a “balance between reason and passion.” He consequently positioned himself almost always upon a solid middle ground. Though he loathed slavery, he never joined such abolitionists as the radical William Lloyd Garrison or even New York’s more moderate William Seward in criticizing the Constitution as a flawed document because it sanctioned slavery in the original states.

Instead, Lincoln hewed to an “antislavery constitutionalism” that anticipated the eventual end of bondage by prohibiting its spread into new American territories. Thus did he anchor his outlook firmly “within the boundaries of the American system.” As Congressman Lincoln said in 1848, “In the West, we consider the Union our ALL.”

One could argue, based on Reynolds’s study, that this balance broke down as Lincoln and the country entered the vortex of war after the 1860 election. The crux of the matter was the concept of the “higher law,” described by Reynolds as “the law of morality and justice that transcends human law, including what some regarded as pro-slavery passages in the Constitution.” The higher law was embraced by Northern radicals who argued that man’s law lacked the force to address the moral blot of slavery. Garrison publicly burned the Constitution to make that point, and it guided John Brown in his murderous attack on a pro-slavery family at Pottawatomie Creek during the 1856 “Bleeding Kansas” days and in his raid on Harpers Ferry three years later to initiate a Southern slave revolt.

Lincoln rejected the higher law, declaring at one point that “insofar as it may attempt to foment a disobedience to the Constitution, or to the constitutional laws of the country, it has my unqualified condemnation.” Reynolds writes that Lincoln saw the higher law as a potentially destabilizing concept because it could be “appropriated by anyone to defend any position.”

As for Brown, even as prominent literary figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau hailed him as “that new saint” and “the clearest light that shines on this land,” Lincoln kept his distance and sought to balance a few words about Brown’s “great courage” and “rare unselfishness” with a stern admonition that those traits “cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason.”

And yet Reynolds identifies Lincoln ultimately with the higher law, notwithstanding his early “condemnation.” He bases this particularly on Lincoln’s embrace of the equality language of the Declaration of Independence, which he viewed as “the most powerful moral law America had produced,” as Reynolds puts it, and whose spirit, in Lincoln’s view, was “inherent in the Constitution.” Certainly this was a profound element of Lincoln’s thinking. The historian Garry Wills has called Lincoln’s elevation of the Declaration at Gettysburg “one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight of hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting.” But Lincoln never suggested the principles of that hallowed language should be promulgated through any extra-constitutional means or, later, any actions that went beyond the recognized laws of war.

Reynolds may be on less solid ground when he seeks to portray Lincoln as an ultimate admirer of John Brown — not of his lawlessness, of course, but of his “methods,” which by 1864 seemed to Lincoln “desirable and defensible.” Reynolds adds that by combining his Emancipation policies with his doctrine of “hard war” to break the South, “Lincoln had already established a cultural atmosphere friendly to the memory of John Brown.”

The author of a hagiographic Brown biography , Reynolds marshals his evidence for Lincoln’s affinity for Brown with his characteristic thoroughness. But in the end he doesn’t make a definitive case that Lincoln adopted a view of Brown that fit those of Emerson and Thoreau (or Reynolds). Ultimately he can’t get around the fact that Lincoln was a saintly genius while Brown was a murderer, a traitor and a madman.

Robert W. Merry, a former Washington correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and the chief executive of Congressional Quarterly, is the author of biographies of James K. Polk and William McKinley.

ABE Abraham Lincoln in His Times By David S. Reynolds Illustrated. 1,088 pp. Penguin Press. $45.

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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...

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 field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America's sixteenth president.

Volume 1 covers Lincoln's early childhood, his experiences as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's life during his presidency and the Civil War, narrating in fascinating detail the crisis over Fort Sumter and Lincoln's own battles with relentless office seekers, hostile newspaper editors, and incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also offers new interpretations of Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd and the untimely deaths of two sons to disease.

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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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