Lincoln's death, like his life, was an event of epic proportions.
When the president was struck down at his moment of triumph, writes
Merrill Peterson, "sorrow--indescribable sorrow" swept the nation.
After lying in state in Washington, Lincoln's body was carried by a
special funeral train to Springfield, Illinois, stopping in major
cities along the way; perhaps a million people viewed the remains
as memorial orations rang out and the world chorused its sincere
condolences. It was the apotheosis of the martyred President--the
beginning of the transformation of a man into a mythic hero.
In Lincoln in American Memory, historian Merrill Peterson provides
a fascinating history of Lincoln's place in the American
imagination from the hour of his death to the present. In tracing
the changing image of Lincoln through time, this wide-ranging
account offers insight into the evolution and struggles of American
politics and society--and into the character of Lincoln himself.
Westerners, Easterners, even Southerners were caught up in the
idealization of the late President, reshaping his memory and laying
claim to his mantle, as his widow, son, memorial builders, and
memorabilia collectors fought over his visible legacy. Peterson
also looks at the complex responses of blacks to the memory of
Lincoln, as they moved from exultation at the end of slavery to the
harsh reality of free life amid deep poverty and segregation; at
more than one memorial event for the great emancipator, the author
notes, blacks were excluded. He makes an engaging examination of
the flood of reminiscences and biographies, from Lincoln's old law
partner William H. Herndon to Carl Sandburg and beyond. Serious
historians were late in coming to the topic; for decades the
myth-makers sought to shape the image of the hero President to suit
their own agendas. He was made a voice of prohibition, a
saloon-keeper, an infidel, a devout Christian, the first Bull Moose
Progressive, a military blunderer and (after the First World War) a
military genius, a white supremacist (according to D.W. Griffith
and other Southern admirers), and a touchstone for the civil rights
movement. Through it all, Peterson traces five principal images of
Lincoln: the savior of the Union, the great emancipator, man of the
people, first American, and self-made man. In identifying these
archetypes, he tells us much not only of Lincoln but of our own
identity as a people.
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