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Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years

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More books are published about Lincon than any other public figure and Carl Sandburg's take on America's 16th president is a good place to start your learning on this extraordinary individual. Sandburg's style shows his roots as a poet; the writing is lyrical and captivating. Though it leans towards myth-making, Sandburg doesn't leave out Lincoln's flaws. Other biographies go deeper into Lincoln's psyche or touch on specific chapters from Lincoln's life; however this book is a good start to begin your education on Abraham Lincoln. Find the complete six-volume set if you can. It does a much better job of putting Lincoln's life into the historical context of the 1800s than this abridged volume does.

If you are a student of Abraham Lincoln your education is not complete without having read Sandburg's Lincoln. Yes, it is poetic. Yes, he strays into myth making and telling. Even so, it is a masterpiece.

After searching for the quintessential Lincoln biography to read, as my introduction to studying this fascinating man, I settled on Sandberg. He was a great pleasure to spend several weeks with! Even though we know this book was completed in the 1930's it is so well written and held up by so many academics and scholars as quintessential. It is true masterpie. Many more, hundreds in fact, books have been published as biography since Sandberg but his alone provides the understanding and genesis of how Lincoln came to be Lincoln.
America (2008) is searching for the next Lincoln: revered on the right and the left, revered in the center, revered on the political fringes, we need a leader, statesman, collaborator, bold leader today more then ever.

This biography is a must-read simply because it is by Sandburg and thus a thread of the national literary fabric. However, Sandburg tends to fictionalize or fill in the blanks of Lincoln's boyhood to the point where it sometimes becomes embarrassing. The narrative picks up speed and credibility, however, when it gets to the documented period of Lincoln's life; and ironically, the folksiness now works in its favor by evoking a very human and real portrait of Lincoln, unlike the current revisionist history drivel about his being gay, manic-depressive, or pro-slavery.

This is a biography of Lincoln by the esteemed poet Carl Sandburg. I was born just up the road, US Route 34 (in Kewanee), from his home town of Galesburg, Illinois. Thus, I have always had a soft spot for this version of Lincoln's life

As a poet, Sandburg's version tends to be more epic and mythical--and less critical--in its examination of Lincoln. For all of that, the book still works well. The first part, "The Prairie Years," recounts Lincoln's youth and early career before he attained the presidency. The story, of course, starts with his family settling in Kentucky, where Lincoln was born in 1809. Later, he moved with his family to Illinois. Lincoln began in New Salem and later moved to Springfield. Sandburg's depiction of his development, to becoming a practiced attorney, his political ambitions, his brief time in the militia, lays out the standard treatment of Lincoln, written extraordinarily well. Many anecdotes dot the volume. We see his doomed relationship with Ann Rutledge and his rocky courtship of Mary Todd. The discussion of his famous debates with Stephen Douglas in the Senate Campaign that brought him national visibility (and rendered him viable as a potential presidential candidate) is well told.

Then, the work goes on to explore his place in the Civil War. The volume speak poignantly of the family tragedy that he experienced (the death of a child is always difficult), the strained relationship with his wife, the challenges of orchestrating the Union's war effort.

In a sense, this is a poetic, lyric, romanticized view of Lincoln. It could scarcely be anything else, I think, given Sandburg's perspective. Nonetheless, for that, this is still a compelling work and worth a read.

Sandburg was a poet, and this is a poetic biography of Lincoln. Is that an asset or a liability? In today's climate of "facts, facts, facts," most would probably say the latter. But, in this instance, I would disagree. There are occasions when great poets hit, with their prose, closer to the mark than the historians. It's like the story of the spirit of one of the Russian aristocrats going through the history books and saying, "My secret is safe." Then he reads Tolstoy's War and Peace and shakes his ghostly fist, crying, "How did he know?" This is a great work by a great writer--and lest I give the wrong impression, there are a great many facts in this book. It's one of the most well-researched historical biographies ever written. But if you are looking for more than a biography of Lincoln, if you are looking to be transported, then this is the book for you.

Richard Salva--author of Soul Journey from Lincoln to Lindbergh [UNABRIDGED]

Sandburg took criticism for filling in some blanks with his imagination, but so what? His biography of Lincoln was not intended as a scholarly treatise. Think of the mystic atmosphere of a campfire at night, with an elder telling about the greatest person in a tribe's history. That is Sandburg's accomplishment, making Lincoln live again among us, at least while we are surrounded by Sandburg's mesmerizing account. No one interested in Lincoln or in the meaning of America should miss the experience of these volumes.

It is fitting that the man whose 1916 poem popularized the expression "city of broad shoulders" for Chicago should write the definitive biography of Abraham Lincoln. The President who had to have the broadest shoulders of all, even more so than Franklin Roosevelt, since Lincoln presided over the American Civil War, came from the America's heartland, Kentucky, Indiana, and most certainly, Illinois. Carl Sandburg's monumental work was first published in 1954. Subsequently there have been various editions; mine was published by Harvest/HBJ in 1982. Sandburg, who was born not that long after the Civil War, says in the preface to this edition: "As a growing boy in an Illinois prairie town I saw marching men who had fought under Grant and Sherman..."

At over 1200 pages, Sandburg's portrait of Lincoln is an in-depth one, and the author has a knack for identifying telling details that illuminate Lincoln's character. For example, in terms of economics, he was a strong advocate of autarky; national self-sufficiency, calling the efforts to produce products abroad and bring them to America "useless labor" (p 155). The book is replete with photographs, a technology which finally came into its own during the Civil War. There is a telling one of Lincoln, in top hat, a full head taller than McClellan, and the rest of his staff, at a meeting in Antietam.

Long before teleprompters and speech writers, Lincoln was perhaps our most articulate President. Most famously, he is known for the Gettysburg address, but Sandburg highlighted other brilliant formulations, for example, during Lincoln's debates with Judge Douglas, in the campaign for the Senate seat in 1958, he said: "It is the eternal struggle between these two principles...The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same...spirit that says, `You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race..."

This book rectified a major deficiency in my American education, almost certainly shared by other readers of this review. Sandburg thoroughly covers Lincoln's "feet of clay." Like most schoolchildren, I was taught that "Lincoln freed the slaves," with the Emancipation Proclamation. In reality, he ONLY freed the slaves in areas that the Union troops did NOT control. The Proclamation specifically excluded, county by county, the areas that Union troops controlled in Louisiana and Virginia, the entire state of Tennessee, and the four "Border States" of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. The New York Herald commented on this cynical political maneuver thusly: "While the Proclamation leaves slavery untouched where his decree can be enforced, he emancipated slaves where his decree cannot be enforced. Friends of human rights will be at a loss to understand this discrimination." (Note: at the end of the war, all slaves were freed.)

Lincoln the statesman, Lincoln the man, Lincoln the essential President, Lincoln the cynical politician; it is all here in Sandburg's superlative work.

Ancient history, or words for the present? Lincoln also said: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves." A quaint verb for the present: "disenthrall." Turn off the TV, and read a 5-star book, for example.

For anyone that has an interest in American History and enjoys Biographies, this book is worth reading. Carl Sandburg is an excellent writer and sprinkles anecdotes from people who knew Lincoln to really add reality to this reading.
Lincoln was a fascinating person who led the US in a critical time in its history. This book captures what he was like and reinforces why he is so revered in this country.

I first received the 3 volume set from my parents when in 5th grade; great gift for any reader especially if interested in Lincoln years or the Civil War. I purchased this volume for my adult son for Christmas and he is enjoying it.