This book offers glimpses of Lincoln by perceptive contemporaries as diverse as John Hay, his young secretary who lived in the White House; Gideon Welles, the sagacious secretary of the navy; David Bates, the manager of the military telegraph; Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, the African American leaders; and Noah Brooks, the friend and newspaper correspondent. Pursuing the idea that the war shaped politics, Abraham Lincoln and A Nation Worth Fighting For intersperses military and nonmilitary history while maintaining a chronological frame. The result in an unusually coherent, richly detailed portrait of the man and his era that will deepen the reader's understanding of this complex period in American history.
"The best short biography of Lincoln on the market."--Michael Burlingame, Connecticut College
