An associate of Abraham Lincoln offers an intimate view of the president's relations with military men and top politicians, placing particular emphasis on the election campaigns of 1860 and 1864. A. K. McClure, a Republican powerbroker and later editor of the Philadelphia Times, reveals how Lincoln replaced Vice President Hannibal Hamlin with the southern Democrat Andrew Johnson on the 1864 ticket. According to McClure, Lincoln kept his hand hidden in order not to offend Hamlin and his New England supporters. In 1892, the publication of Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Times caused an angry exchange of letters (included in this edition) between McClure and the late president's secretary, John G. Nicolay. For all his nobility, Lincoln was a shrewd and cautious politician, running scared for reelection until major Union army victories in September 1864. McClure writes candidly about William T. Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, and George B. McClellan. Among the politicians discussed are Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, who fixed the Southern policy that Lincoln followed until war came; Salmon P. Chase, the annoyingly ambitious secretary of the treasury; Edwin M. Stanton, the moody secretary of war; and Thaddeus Stevens, the ferocious congressman whose relations with Lincoln were uneasy at best. James A. Rawley is Carl Adolph Happold Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and author of Turning Points of the Civil War, also available as a Bison Book.

This book examines Lincoln's administration during the Civil War and the president's relations with his generals and other politicians.

Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Times: Some Personal Recollections of War and Politics During the Lincoln Administration I saw Mr. Lincoln many times during his Presidential term, and, like all of the many others who had intimate relations with him, I enjoyed his confidence only within the limitations of the necessities of the occasion. I do not therefore write these chapters assuming to have been the confidant of Mr. Lincoln; but in some things I did see him as he was, and, from necessity, knew what he did and why he did it. What thus happened to come under my own observation and within my own hearing often related to men or measures of moment then and quite as momentous now, when the events of the war are about to be finally crystallized into history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War--a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This brilliantly argued new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham--Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation's financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. Brimming with drama and outsized characters, Congress at War is also one of the most original books about the Civil War to appear in years and will change the way we understand the conflict.

In this rich study of Union governors and their role in the Civil War, Stephen D. Engle examines how these politicians were pivotal in securing victory. In a time of limited federal authority, governors were an essential part of the machine that maintained the Union while it mobilized and sustained the war effort. Charged with the difficult task of raising soldiers from their home states, these governors had to also rally political, economic, and popular support for the conflict, at times against a backdrop of significant local opposition. Engle argues that the relationship between these loyal-state leaders and Lincoln's administration was far more collaborative than previously thought. While providing detailed and engaging portraits of these men, their state-level actions, and their collective cooperation, Engle brings into new focus the era's complex political history and shows how the Civil War tested and transformed the relationship between state and federal governments.

Burlingame 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.

What is the Lincoln Trail in Pennsylvania? It is the story of Abraham Lincoln in the Keystone State&—the chronicle of where he went, what he did, and what he said in the state. The trail begins with Lincoln's Pennsylvania ancestors, moves on to his travels, public appearances, and speeches, and concludes with his funeral train in 1865. The Lincoln Trail in Pennsylvania tells a story for the reader, but it is also a guide for those who would travel the state figuratively or literally, to recover the memory of America's sixteenth president. The Lincoln Trail in Pennsylvania transports the reader back in time to key moments in Lincoln's public life. In 1846, at the age of thirty-seven, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Using mileage that Lincoln claimed for his trip, available routes, duration of the journey, and average speeds, Bradley Hoch is the first to establish the probable route Lincoln followed on his way from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Hoch concludes that he traveled by steamboat along the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers and by stagecoach on the National Road into Maryland. After Lincoln was elected president in November 1860, he transformed his inaugural journey from Springfield to Washington into a grand railroad tour of northern cities, hoping to cement the people's loyalty to the Union and to himself. His inaugural train, the first of its kind, made several stops in Pennsylvania. Hoch follows Lincoln throughout his journey, including the dramatic last leg&—the &"secret night train&"&—when Allan Pinkerton and his agents, determined to protect Lincoln from would-be assassins, cut telegraph lines and sidetracked trains in order to spirit him safely from Harrisburg to Washington. Hoch recovers symbolic moments, none more moving than Lincoln's funeral train as it stopped in several Pennsylvania cities, including York, Harrisburg, Lancaster, and Erie. In Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell was placed at the head of Lincoln's coffin when it lay in Independence Hall. As more than one hundred thousand mourners passed by, the bell's inscription memorialized his life: &"Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof.&" Rarely seen photographs, engravings, and maps enrich this illuminating volume. In the final chapter, Hoch offers a guide of sites to visit in present-day Pennsylvania, making The Lincoln Trail in Pennsylvania a welcome book for a wide range of readers interested in American history.

Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt are widely considered the two greatest presidents of the past two centuries. How did these two very different men rise to power, run their administrations, and achieve greatness? How did they set their policies, rally public opinion, and transform the nation? Were they ultimately more different or alike? This anthology compares these two presidents and presidencies, examining their legacies, leadership styles, and places in history.