Customer Reviews

366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency: The Private, Political, and Military Decisions of America's Greatest President

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Stephen A. Wynalda is a well known novelist whose past work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, a prestigious American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot." His latest work, 366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency: The Private, Political, and Military Decisions of America's Greatest President, takes an interesting and unusual method of examining the administration of the Illinois Rail Splitter. Wynalda takes 366 individual days, but orders them by events to cover the entire course of Lincoln and the Civil War years. His goal is not to present yet another typical Lincoln treatise (there have frankly been too many Lincoln books over the years, many of which are either rehashes of widely known material reworded for the latest generation or focused works that cover a particular element in great depth. This work tries to be a general work that tells the complete story of Lincoln in a broad-brush approach, without diving too deeply into any single aspect of the presidency at the expense of others.

Wynalda's outline of using individual days is different, and frankly, once you get into the flow of what the author is trying to accomplish, it works quite well. Many of the stories are indeed restatements of well know incidents, but this book surprised me with how much obscure and new information it presents -- material that is interesting and helps the reader better understand the complexities of being the President of the United States during perhaps the most tumultuous period in American history.

Wynalda begins his work by looking at November 6, 1860, the day Lincoln sat at home and awaited the election returns that would make him President instead of his old in-state and national rival Stephen A. Douglas, or two Southerners who had little support in the electoral vote-rich Northern states. A side bar follows the discussion, examining "How Did Lincoln get Elected?" The 84 sidebars add depth and background information, and are perhaps the best feature of the book. Wynalda moves to November 10 and 20, 1860, filling in the key details of the president-elect. He then picks an averages of 70-80 days each of the next four years to portray a Lincoln whose attention is drawn in so many directions, between roller coaster war news, family issues and tragedies, political challenges within the North, foreign relations, his own Cabinet and its diversity in views and opinions on the course of the war, domestic issues, and looking out for his own political future as he seeks a second term in the White House.

The individual topics are a wide-ranging mixture of topics from Lincoln's view on new inventions to the death of his son Willie's beloved pet pony. In between are some colorful and unusual stories that give a glimpse into the mind of Abraham Lincoln.

Be warned that this is a massive book, measuring over 2" in spine thickness and running 590 pages. However, the way Wynalda has organized and structured the individual stories makes this eminently readable in short bursts for the time challenged modern book browser. It's easy to read a few pages, set the book aside for other priorities, and then come back to it in a day, week, or even a month and not lose the flow as the stories are not interconnected or reliant on a specific sequence.

This book will appeal to anyone wishing to learn more about the 16th President and his personal and public decisions that not only influenced his wife and children, colleagues, friends, and political associates and enemies, but perhaps as much influence on shaping American history as any man in the country's history.

The book is published by Skyhorse Publishing, whose web site offers so much more information of interest.

Author Wynalda does something amazing here: he uses the events -- large and small -- of specific days during Lincoln's presidency to both humanize and add to the myth that IS Lincoln. Painstakingly researched, well written and full of surprising and fascinating details, the book emerges as one of the most intimate, enlightening and entertaining works about the man who is probably our most documented president. Perfect for the Lincoln buff or anyone wanting an over-the-shoulder look at Lincoln's presidency.

This book is beautifully researched, and the writing is direct and accessible without ever talking down to the reader. It's the kind of book you can read straight through or you can pick up and enjoy in small bites. I expected to learn about Lincoln, which I did. What surprised me, though, was the vivid portrait of both Lincoln-the-man, and Lincoln-the-President, that coalesced as the entries built on one another, and how deeply moved I was by these incidents from his life. I've never seen Lincoln as quite so human, and quite so real.

I considered offering my copy to my great-nephew, but I'm not ready to part with it. So . . . I'm giving him his own copy for high school graduation.

Some related books I've enjoyed: Gloryland: A Novel; From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad; The Abolitionist Decade, 1829-1838: A Year-by-Year History of Early Events in the Antislavery Movement; Fanny Kemble's Civil Wars; Coal Black Horse; An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans

As an unreconstructed editor, I keep a pencil handy when I read a new book. I scribbled so many times: "I never knew this!" in the margins of Wynalda's book that I resorted to "INKT!" through the final pages. As a history buff, I thought I knew most of the pertinent details of Lincoln's life from Carl Sandburg's epic to Doris Kearn Goodwin's [[ASIN:B002E9R30U Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln]. But I needed to add this book to the shelf.

The 366 days described in this book will resonate with followers of modern politics, finding eerie parallels with events of the decades before 2000. The 366 days so exhaustively researched will assemble a cast of heroes and villains then who still take the stage today, their roles open to history's interpretation. The 366 days burnish the image of America's greatest president who kept our fledgling democracy safe in his big, callused hands.

A well crafted book. Easily readable as it felt more like I was reading a journal than anything else. But it was very insightful and I thought well-balanced in terms of bringing up Lincoln's faults as well as his strengths. Not to mention we get a look at what his contemporaries thought about him. Lincoln once said "This War is eating my life out." And honestly, I, for the first time understood what he meant after reading this book. As it seemed that Wynalda put you in the embattled 16th president's shoes with every decision (both good or bad) that needed to be made. He was able to touch on many well known and lesser known facts and episodes during the Lincoln Administration and having the bibliography to back it up if you further want to investigate. The flow of the book is such that you could read day by day and stop at a day come back and read on and not get lost. Wynalda gives you the "appetizer" to a big feast of Abraham Lincoln historiography. Would suggest to anyone, even people I meet on the streets.

Hard pressed to think of a worse one. There are a few in the running -- Wilson, FDR, Truman -- but Lincoln "wins". The "uncivil" war was inexcusable. Sorry, I wouldn't even consider buying a book with this title.