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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Filling in the gaps..., December 14, 2007
This review is from: House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided by War (Hardcover)
There is no shortage of books that have been written about Abraham Lincoln, but very little has been written about Mary Todd Lincoln's dysfunctional family and Lincoln's relationship with them. House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by War by Stephen Berry helps to fill in this gap.
Mary Todd Lincoln came from a prominent Lexington, Kentucky family. One of fourteen brothers and sisters, her family was fairly close-knit. Except for the death of her mother and her father's remarriage, Mary had a fairly happy childhood. Lincoln also took to Mary's large extended family and was closer to them in many ways than to his own. It wasn't until the beginning of the Civil War that this large clan showed just how selfish, conniving, materialistic and ill-tempered they could be. Berry claims that they weren't necessarily "a bad family; it made them a typical one" for that time period.
Berry gives as much detail as possible about each sibling, and how they interacted with Lincoln and his wife. The majority of them sided with the Confederates in the Civil War. Brothers Sam and Alexander and brother-in-law Benjamin Hardin Helm were killed in battle. Brother David was a sadistic jailer of Yankee prisoners of war. Brother George was known to loot from Yankee homes around battle sites. Brother-in-law Ninian Edwards was a Union profiteer, and brother-in-law Charles Henry Kellogg committed treason. Even sister Martha was accused of smuggling contraband to the Confederates through Washington, DC. "The Todds were a complicated swirl of affection and obligation, embarrassment and endurance. But they were, for better and often worse, Lincoln's family."
Berry shows great perception in how Lincoln viewed the Todds and how they defined the war for him. "Surveying the damage to his in-laws, Lincoln must have noticed here in one family, his family, was the nation and the war writ small...If the Todds did not help shape his interpretation of the war, they certainly resonated with it."
My one complaint with House of Abraham is that the body of the book is a bit short at 192 pages. In his epilogue, he includes only thumbnail sketches of the fates of Mary's siblings after Lincoln's assassination. However, in his defense, he also claims that after Lincoln's death, the family sort of disappeared from notice. Also, I have been to the Todd house in Lexington. Berry could have included some photos of this restored residence. Otherwise, House of Abraham is an interesting look at the personal battle Lincoln had to wage with his in-laws at the same time he was fighting the Civil War on the national stage.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Family and War, March 10, 2008
This review is from: House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided by War (Hardcover)
Their have been some good Civil War family biographies lately. The Whalen's book on the Fighting McCook's and this book on the Todd family come to mind. Family biographies can help us understand the human cost of the Civil War as no other histories can. As family members die, we understand the war's causalities in very personal terms gaining an idea of what this costs those involved.
The McCook family had no conflicted loyalties, no question of who to fight for nor any hesitations in committing to a side. They were able to establish a record of service fighting for the Union that was unique. The Todd family had conflicted loyalties, questions on who to fight for and hesitated in committing to a side. A large slave owning family from Kentucky with an in-law in the White House would cause problems for everyone. Lincoln, his wife, her brothers & sisters their spouses created a series of confrontations, personal and political problems that make up this story.
The author introduces the Todd family and the principle people giving us a solid foundation for the story. Lincoln tries to keep as much of the family on the Union side as possible. His efforts delay some members "going South" and produce some real political problems in 1861 for him. Each year of the war is a chapter. This allows us to follow everyone from assignment to assignment or battle to battle. Against this backdrop, Lincoln's personal life and family problems becomes worse and worse. Each newspaper story, each battle death adds to Lincoln's problems and Mary's woes. However, at Springfield as Lincoln is buried, the Todd in-laws stand as family.
The author is easy to read and manages to keep all the story lines together. These are not likable people and he clearly does not like them. This come through in a number of places and may have colored the story. In addition, the author makes misstatements about the battle of Shiloh and the POW exchange. None of his mistakes are major but he is accepting of popular stories as opposed to good scholarship. A nice touch is to take each person from 1865 to his or her death. This is always something I look for in this type of book and feel is really important. The author does an excellent job on each person giving the reader a feel for who they were.
Overall, this is a very readable book. The people are well drawn allowing us to see their world and have some understanding of their choices. In addition, the author shows how the divisions in Lincoln's personal family helped him reach out to the national family as reflected in many of his speeches.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A New Perspective on Lincoln?, January 27, 2008
This review is from: House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided by War (Hardcover)
Abraham Lincoln is one of the most-written about men in the English language. As a long-time Lincoln-buff, I don't mind that there are so many books, but I have to admit, I occasionally wonder if we've reached diminishing returns. A lot of Lincoln books are what I'd call "old wine in new bottles."
But House of Abraham really is that rare thing: a truly new and important perspective on Abraham Lincoln. Having read most of what there is on Abraham and Mary, let me just say what I think is new here: First, the author fleshes out the Southern wing of the Todd family for the first time. These are some seriously colorful characters: David Todd was arrested for desecrating corpses in a Richmond jail; Samuel Todd and Alex Todd were Confederate soldiers killed in action; George Todd abused African-American prisoners who had been taken while storming Battery Wagner; Emilie Todd, widow of a Confederate Brigadier, spent a week in the White House, despite the scandal; Margaret Todd smuggled contraband through Union lines, on and on. In all my reading I'd never known any of this.
Second, the author connects these scandals to Mary's growing unpopularity in Washington. Many books have mentioned that Mary lost three half-brothers on the rebel side (the author proves that it was only two), but none have demonstrated so clearly why her family-ties became such a problem.
Finally, while House of Abraham begins as a book about the Todds, it becomes more and more a meditation on family, on the nation as a family, and on Lincoln's evolving understanding of the War. Ultimately, the author convinced me that Lincoln saw the Todds as a microcosm of the nation and that he understood the war as a "mosaic of family crises."
As some of the other reviewers have pointed out, the book isn't very long, but considering it limits itself to saying something actually new about the most-written-about-man-in-America, I don't think that's surprising. Team of Rivals (which I loved) was 900 pages, but not that much of it was new. It was really the framing that was so impressive. In fact, I'd recommend reading Team of Rivals and then House of Abraham in succession. They make a terrific pair.
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