366 Days in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency: The Private, Political, and Military Decisions of America’s Greatest President
Here is another new approach to writing about Abraham Lincoln. The author has chosen to select and examine 366 of the more than 1,600 days of Lincoln’s presidency. The book usually focuses on one key event that occurred on each of those days and then puts that event in context. There are some excellent discussions of interesting issues and events. Lincoln’s evolving views on emancipation are explained in many entries. Other selections provide interesting perspectives on Lincoln’s political maneuvers and his family issues (especially problems with Mary’s profligate spending). Although many of the chronologically organized selections are thought-provoking and informative, the book’s format is not altogether satisfactory. In the course of putting events in context, some past events and later events are added to the mix. Unfortunately, much of the material gets repeated in later event descriptions in order to put them in context. Not all the issue discussions are consistent. One more organizational complication: 84 sidebar boxes throughout the book provide additional insights into events and issues. The net result is a collection of 450 disparate short essays about Lincoln and Civil War issues. As such, they require a very good index in order to access them. Unfortunately, the index is incomplete and flawed. Footnotes would have been much easier to use than endnotes, particularly where the endnotes do not have page references at the top of each page or in the notes themselves. In discussions of Lincoln and the Civil War, accuracy and completeness are essential to credibility. Some examples of inaccuracy or incompleteness: Lincoln did write “an uncharacteristically sharp letter on July 14 [1863] to General George Meade” for allowing Lee to escape after Gettysburg, but, unstated in the book, is that Lincoln never signed or sent the letter. Robert E. Lee was not pressured to transport his whole army west in May 1863 – just most of James Longstreet’s First Corps. The book says 16 people died in the 1861 Baltimore Riots but elsewhere claims 26 died. So, I can recommend this book for those interested in some light Lincoln or Civil War reading in very small batches. It’s a fine book for browsing but not for serious research. Reviewer: Edward H. Bonekemper III Book Review Editor Ed Bonekemper, adjunct military history lecturer at Muhlenberg College, is the author of four Civil War books.
|
Illustrated, photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 618 pp. 2010, Skyhorse Publishing,