How did President Abraham Lincoln come to believe that slavery was "morally wrong," and that Congress needed to pass a law to abolish it once and for all? What did he do in January 1865--three months before he was assassinated--to ensure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment?

This fast-paced, riveting book answers these questions and more as it tells the story of Lincoln's life and times from his upbringing in Kentucky and Illinois, through his work as a lawyer and congressman, to his candidacies and victory in two Presidential elections. It also describes Lincoln's duties in the Civil War as Commander-in-Chief, his actions as President, and his relationships with his family, his political allies and rivals, and the public who voted for and against him. Harold Holzer makes an important era in American history come alive for readers of all ages.

An official companion to Steven Spielberg's Oscar(R) award-winning film Lincoln, the book also includes thirty historical photographs, a chronology, a cast of characters, texts of selected Lincoln writings and speeches, a bibliography, and a foreword by the author about his experience working as a consultant on the movie.

No American president before or since has faced the problems that confronted Abraham Lincoln when he took office in 1861. Nor has any president expressed himself with such eloquence on issues of great moment. Lincoln's writings reveal the depth of his thought and feeling and the sincerity of his convictions as he weighed the cost of freedom and preserving the Union. Now for the first time an annotated edition of Lincoln's essential writings examines the extraordinary man who produced them and explains the context in which they were composed. The Annotated Lincoln spans three decades of Lincoln's career, from his initial political campaign for state assemblyman in 1832 to his final public address on Reconstruction, delivered three days before his assassination on April 15, 1865. Included here are selections from his personal and political letters, poetry, speeches, and presidential messages and proclamations. In their generous annotations, Harold Holzer and Thomas Horrocks explore Lincoln's thoughts on slavery, emancipation, racial equality, the legality of secession, civil liberties in wartime, and the meaning of the terrible suffering caused by the Civil War. And they bring Lincoln's writings into the ambit of Lincoln scholarship, to offer a broader appreciation of his thoughts, words, and career. Numerous illustrations throughout animate historical events and actors. Teachers, students, and especially Lincoln enthusiasts will treasure this elegant volume and keep it close at hand for reference and enjoyment.

A new book--and companion to the Steven Spielberg film--tracing how Abraham Lincoln came to view slavery . . . and came to end it.

Steven Spielberg focused his movie Lincoln on the sixteenth president's tumultuous final months in office, when he pursued a course of action to end the Civil War, reunite the country, and abolish slavery. Invited by the filmmakers to write a special Lincoln book as a companion to the film, Harold Holzer, the distinguished historian and a consultant on the movie, now gives us a fast-paced, exciting new book on Lincoln's life and times, his evolving beliefs about slavery, and how he maneuvered to end it.

The story starts on January 31, 1865--less than three months before Lincoln's assassination--as the president anxiously awaits word on whether Congress will finally vote to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Although the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier had authorized the army to liberate slaves in Confederate territory, only a Constitutional amendment passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states would end slavery legally everywhere in the country.

Drawing from letters, speeches, memoirs, and documents by Lincoln and others, Holzer goes on to cover Lincoln's boyhood, his moves from Kentucky to Indiana to Illinois, his work as a lawyer and congressman, his unsuccessful candidacies for the U.S. Senate and his victory in two presidential elections, his arduous duties in the Civil War as commander in chief, his actions as president, and his relationships with his family, political rivals, and associates. Holzer provides a fresh view of America in those turbulent times, as well as fascinating insights into the challenges Lincoln faced as he weighed his personal beliefs against his presidential duties in relation to the slavery issue.

The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment would become the crowning achievement of Abraham Lincoln's life and the undisputed testament to his political genius. By viewing his life through this prism, Holzer makes an important passage in American history come alive for readers of all ages.

The book also includes thirty historical photographs, a chronology, a historical cast of characters, texts of selected Lincoln writings, a bibliography, and notes.

Ubiquitous and enigmatic, the historical Lincoln, the literary Lincoln, even the cinematic Lincoln have all proved both fascinating and irresistible. Though some 16,000 books have been written about him, there is always more to say, new aspects of his life to consider, new facets of his persona to explore. Enlightening and entertaining, Exploring Lincoln offers a selection of sixteen papers presented at the Lincoln Forum symposia over the past three years. Shining new light on particular aspects of Lincoln and his tragically abbreviated presidency, Exploring Lincoln presents a compelling snapshot of current Lincoln scholarship and a fascinating window into understanding America's greatest president.

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most prominent events in U.S. history. It continues to attract enormous and intense interest from scholars, writers, and armchair historians alike, ranging from painstaking new research to wild-eyed speculation. At the end of the Lincoln bicentennial year, and the onset of the Civil War sesquicentennial, the leading scholars of Lincoln and his murder offer in one volume their latest studies and arguments about the assassination, its aftermath, the extraordinary public reaction (which was more complex than has been previously believed), and the iconography that Lincoln's murder and deification inspired. Contributors also offer the most up-to-date accounts of the parallel legal event of the summer of 1865-the relentless pursuit, prosecution, and punishment of the conspirators. Everything from graphic tributes to religious sermons, to spontaneous outbursts on the streets of the nation's cities, to emotional mass-mourning at carefully organized funerals, as well as the imposition of military jurisprudence to try theconspirators, is examined in the light of fresh evidence and insightful analysis.The contributors are among the finest scholars who are studying Lincoln's assassination. All have earned well-deserved reputations for the quality of their research, their thoroughness, their originality, and their writing. In addition to the editors, contributors include Thomas R. Turner, Edward Steers Jr., Michael W. Kauffman, Thomas P. Lowry, Richard E. Sloan, Elizabeth D. Leonard, and Richard Nelson Current.

Emancipating Lincoln seeks a new approach to the Emancipation Proclamation, a foundational text of American liberty that in recent years has been subject to woeful misinterpretation. These seventeen hundred words are Lincoln's most important piece of writing, responsible both for his being hailed as the Great Emancipator and for his being pilloried by those who consider his once-radical effort at emancipation insufficient and half-hearted. Harold Holzer, an award-winning Lincoln scholar, invites us to examine the impact of Lincoln's momentous announcement at the moment of its creation, and then as its meaning has changed over time. Using neglected original sources, Holzer uncovers Lincoln's very modern manipulation of the media - from his promulgation of disinformation to the ways he variously withheld, leaked, and promoted the Proclamation - in order to make his society-altering announcement palatable to America. Examining his agonizing revisions, we learn why a peerless prose writer executed what he regarded as his greatest act in leaden language. Turning from word to image, we see the complex responses in American sculpture, painting, and illustration across the past century and a half, as artists sought to criticize, lionize, and profit from Lincoln's endeavor. Holzer shows the faults in applying our own standards to Lincoln's efforts, but also demonstrates how Lincoln's obfuscations made it nearly impossible to discern his true motives. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Proclamation, this concise volume is a vivid depiction of the painfully slow march of all Americans - white and black, leaders and constituents - toward freedom.

Across the country, in the middle of busy city squares and hidden on quiet streets, there are nearly 200 statues erected in memory of Abraham Lincoln. No other American has ever been so widely commemorated.A few years ago, anticipating the bicentennial of Lincolnas birth in 2009, Jim Percoco, a history teacher with a passion for both Lincoln and public sculpture, set off to see what he might learn about some of these monumentsawhat they meant when they were unveiled, and what they mean to us today. The result is this captivating book, a fascinating chronicle of four summers on the road looking for Lincoln stories in statues of marble and bronze. Of all the monuments, Percoco selects seven emblematic ones. He begins and ends the journey in Washington, starting with Thomas Ballas Emancipation Group, erected east of the Capitol in 1876 with private funds from African Americans, and dedicated by Frederick Douglass. Here, Percoco and his multi-ethnic band of teenage historians explore the impact of this Freedmanas Monument showing Lincoln and a kneeling freed bondsperson. What does the statute say about race and freedom to todayas Americans? What did Ballaand his sponsorsawant it to say? From Augustus Saint-Gaudensas majestic Standing Lincoln of 1887 in Chicago, which helped move our image of Lincoln from great emancipator to that of statesman to Paul Manshipas 1932 Lincoln the Hoosier Youth, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which glows with an art deco sleekness, Percoco mines a wealth of Lincoln legaciesaand our reactions to them expressed across generations. Here are controversial gems like Barnardas 1917 tribute in Cincinnati and Borglumas Seated Lincoln, struggling with the pain of leadership, beckoning visitors to sit next to him on his metal bench in Newark, New Jersey. At each stop, Percoco chronicles the history of each monument, spotlighting its artistic, social, political, and cultural origins. His descriptions of works so often seen as clichA(c)s tease fresh meaning from mute stone and cold metalaraising provocative questions not just about who Lincoln might have been, but also about what weave wanted him to be in the monuments weave built.

On March 8 and 9, 1862, a sea battle off the Virginia coast changed naval warfare forever. It began when the Confederate States Navyas CSS Virginia led a task force to break the Union blockade of Hampton Roads. The Virginia sank the USS Cumberland and forced the frigate Congress to surrender. Damaged by shore batteries, the Virginia retreated, returning the next day to find her way blocked by the newly arrived USS Monitor. The clash of ironclads was underway. After fighting for nine hours, both ships withdrew, neither seriously damaged, with both sides claiming victory. Although the battle may have been a draw and the Monitor sank in a storm later that year, this first encounter between powered, ironclad warships spelled the end of wooden warshipsaand the dawn of a new navy. This book takes a new look at this historic battle. The ten original essays, written by leading historians, explore every aspect of the battleafrom the building of the warships and life aboard these airon coffinsa to tactics, strategy, and the debates about who really won the battle of Hampton Roads. Co-published with The Marinersa Museum, home to the USS Monitor Center, this authoritative guide to the military, political, technological, and cultural dimensions of this historic battle also features a portfolio of classic lithographs, drawings, and paintings. Harold Holzer is one of the countryas leading experts on the Civil War. His books include Lincoln and Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President and, for Fordham, Lincoln on Democracy (co-edited with Mario M. Cuomo) and The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Complete, Unexpurgated Text. Tim Mulligan's books include Virginia: A History and Guide.

Three years ago, in celebration of the publication of The Union Preserved: A Guide to the Civil War Records in the New York State Archives, the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, a program of the New York State Education Department, held a two-day symposium featuring research by leading scholars on New York's role in the Civil War. The symposium brought together a broad spectrum of attendees from the Lincoln Forum, Civil War re-enactors, Civil War Roundtable members, students, local historians, educators, and history enthusiasts. As the most populous state at the time of the Civil War, New York was central to winning the war. The state not only provided the most men and materiel, but was also the North's economic center as well as an important center of political and social activism. Inhabited by increasing numbers of immigrant groups, abolitionists, and an emerging free black community, New York's social and political environment was a microcosm of the larger social and political conflict being played out in the war. The symposium addressed these tensions by examining the role of women, blacks, Native Americans, and European immigrant groups in New York, particularly the various perspectives held by members of each group regarding the war effort. The symposium examined the difficulties Abraham Lincoln faced in keeping New York favorable to his policies. It revealed the tremendous sacrifice New York made in the military campaign, as well as the treatment of Confederate soldiers at New York's Elmira Prison Camp. The State of the Union is a compilation of the papers presented at the symposium. The essays included in the volume: Housekeeping on Its Own Terms: Abraham Lincoln in NewYork, by Harold Holzer The Volcano Under the City: The Significance of Draft Rioting in New York City and State, July 1863, by Iver Bernstein What's Gender Got to Do With It? New York in the Age of the Civil War, by Lillian Serece Williams In the Shadow of American Indian Removal: The Iroquois in the Civil War, by Laurance M. Hauptman Above the Law: Abitrary Arrest, Habeas Corpus, and the Freedom of the Press in New York, by Joseph M. Bellacosa and Frank J. Williams New York's "Andersonville: " The Elmira Military Prison, by Lonnie R. Speer The Continuing Conflict: New York and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, by Hans Trefousse

Each November, hundreds of Lincoln and Civil War enthusiasts mark the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address by gathering together in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the annual Lincoln Forum -- an acclaimed scholarly symposium featuring groundbreaking presentations by the nation's leading historians. The scholars and attendees alike make the pilgrimage for one reason: to re-interpret, re-examine, and re-discover the most intriguing, endlessly fascinating, figure of the American past, Abraham Lincoln.

Now the best of the most recent Lincoln Forum lectures -- some of which have been broadcast on C-SPAN'S "Book TV" network -- have been collected in one volume for the enjoyment and enlightenment of readers everywhere. The essays offer important re-examinations of Lincoln as military leader, communicator, family man, and icon. The scholarship is new, the voices are sure, and the results are likely to both break new ground and provoke new debate.

James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, contributes a timely essay on Lincoln's record as commander-in-chief. Craig L. Symonds, the distinguished naval historian, analyzes Lincoln and the technological revolution that transformed his Civil War navy. John F. Marszalek, acclaimed biographer of William T. Sherman, examines Lincoln's important relationship with that controversial but productive military hero. And Jean H. Baker, the leading authority on Mary Todd Lincoln, offers a definitive assessment of the frequently mis-portrayed Lincoln marriage, and a new analysis of the much-maligned First Lady.

In another important chapter, historian Hans L. Trefousse finds compelling new evidence of Lincoln's surprisingpopularity while he lived; military expert J. Tracy Power looks at the Confederacy's Army of Northern Virginia in the wake of the watershed presidential election of 1864, which returned Lincoln to power; award-winning author and historian John C.Waugh pens an appreciation of Lincoln's unique talents as writer and communicator; Gerald Prokopowicz, historian of the Lincoln Museum, takes a new look at Lincoln's high expectations for the Army of the Potomac after Gettysburg; and Frank J.Williams, chairman of the Lincoln Forum, explores the often under-appreciated influence of the women in Lincoln's life.

Back in print after ten years, this unique book brings together 141 speeches, speech excerpts, letters, fragments, and other writings by Lincoln on the theme of democracy. Selected by leading historians, the writings include such standards as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, but also such little-seen writings as a letter assuring a general that the President felt safeadrafted just three days before Lincolnas assassination. In this richly annotated anthology, the writings are grouped thematically into seven sections that cover politics, slavery, the union, democracy, liberty, the nation divided, and the American Dream. The introductions are by well-known historians: Gabor Borritt, William E. Gienapp, Charles B. Strozier, Richard Nelson Current, James M. McPherson, Mark E. Neely, Jr., and Hans L. Trefousse. In addition, each sectionas title page displays a photograph of Lincoln from the time period covered in that section, with a paragraph describing the source and the occasion for which the photograph was made.

Each year, hundreds of scholars and other enthusiasts mark the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address by gathering together in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the Lincoln Forum. There, leading historians reinterpret and rediscover the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Now the best recent Lincoln Forum essays are available in one volume, offering important reexaminations of Lincoln as military leader, communicator, family man, and icon.

The contributors include James M. McPherson, Craig L. Symonds, John F. Marszalek, Jean H. Baker, Hans L. Trefousse, J. Tracy Power, John C. Waugh, Gerald Prokopowicz, and Frank J. Williams.

His image today is part of America, from the penny to Mount Rushmore, but in his own day Abraham Lincoln was as much reviled as he was revered, and he remained a controversial figure up to the time of his assassination. Now one of our preeminent authorities on Lincoln charts his rocky road from obscure western politician to national icon.

In Lincoln Seen and Heard, Harold Holzer probes the development of Lincoln's image and reputation in his own time. He examines a vast array of visual and documentary sources to demonstrate the president's impact both on the public and on the historical imagination, enabling us to see the man from Illinois as his contemporaries saw him.

Holzer considers a wide range of images -- prints, portraits, political cartoons -- to reveal what they say about Lincoln. He shows the ways in which Lincoln was depicted as Great Emancipator and as commander-in-chief, how he was assailed in cartoons from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, and how printmakers both memorialized and capitalized on his assassination. Sharing dozens of historic reproductions, Holzer writes with unabashed enthusiasm as he unravels the symbolic meaning and the message of these images and explains their relation to political and military events of the time.

Holzer also takes a closer look at Lincoln's oratory, the words of a man often ridiculed for his manner of speaking and homespun image. He shows how Lincoln's choice of words in the Emancipation Proclamation was actually designed to minimize its humanitarianism and argues that the myth of his failure at Gettysburg has been unfairly exaggerated. Through this provocative collection, Lincoln emerges not only as a leader dependent uponhis public image but also as an active participant in its development. Lincoln Seen and Heard helps us distinguish man from myth, while offering a superb introduction to the work of one of our most provocative Lincoln scholars.

In February 2009, America celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and the pace of new Lincoln books and articles has already quickened. From his cabinet's politics to his own struggles with depression, Lincoln remains the most written-about story in our history. And each year historians find something new and important to say about the greatest of our Presidents. Lincoln Revisited is a masterly guidePub to what's new and what's noteworthy in this unfolding story-a brilliant gathering of fresh scholarship by the leading Lincoln historians of our time. Brought together by The Lincoln Forum, they tackle uncharted territory and emerging questions; they also take a new look at established debates-including those about their own landmark works. Here, these well-known historians revisit key chapters in Lincoln's legacy-from Matthew Pinsker on Lincoln's private life and Jean Baker on religion and the Lincoln marriage to Geoffrey Perret on Lincoln as leader and Frank J. Williams on Lincoln and civil liberties in wartime. The eighteen original essays explore every corner of Lincoln's world-religion and politics, slavery and sovereignty, presidential leadership and the rule of law, the Second Inaugural Address and the assassination. In his 1947 classic, Lincoln Reconsidered, David Herbert Donald confronted the Lincoln myth. Today, the scholars in Lincoln Revisited give a new generation of students, scholars, and citizens the perspectives vital for understanding the constantly reinterpreted genius of Abraham Lincoln.

In addition to being one of the most admired and successful politicians in history, Abraham Lincoln was a gifted writer whose speeches, eulogies, and addresses are quoted often and easily recognized all around the world. The writings in this collection span from his early years in Indiana, to his time as a lawyer and a congressman in Illinois, to his final years in the White House. Arranged chronologically into topics such as family and friends, the law, politics and the presidency, story-telling, religion, and morality, Abraham Lincoln's Notebooks includes his famous letters to Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Henry Pierce as well as personal letters to Mary Todd Lincoln and his note to Mrs. Bixby, the mother who lost five sons during the Civil War. Also included are full texts of the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, both of Lincoln's inaugural addresses, and his famous "A House Divided" speech. Rarely seen writings like poetry he composed as teenager, candid notes he left on the back of letters (sometimes displaying humor or even annoyance), and scraps of notes that he kept in the inside lining of his top hats (particularly during his years as a lawyer in Illinois) give insight into Lincoln's personality and private life.

From the final bloody battles of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the role of freed slaves and Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Americans faced a remarkable range of critical issues in 1865. In this illumi nating collection, prominent historians of nineteenth-century America offer insightful overviews of the individuals, events, and issues that together made 1865 one of the most momentous years in American history. Following an intro duction by renowned Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, nine new essays explore the end of the Civil War, Lincoln's death, and the start of the tentative peace. Topics include the sending of the Thir teenth Amendment to the states for ratification, General Ulysses S. Grant's crucial last thrusts against Robert E. Lee and Lincoln's management of the over all war effort, Lincoln's meeting with Confederate emissaries who sought to reverse the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's second inaugural address, and Lincoln's dramatic April 4 walk through Richmond. Turning to Lincoln's assassination, essays examine Booth's organizational efforts leading up to the events of that fateful day and the trial of the assas sination conspirators. Other chapters cover the African American experience in the final year of the war and the use of the visual arts to preserve the life and legacy of the martyred president. With appendixes that include a close look at Lincoln's activities and writings from January 1 through April 14 and other pertinent materials, this thoughtful col lection provides an engaging evaluation of one of the most pivotal years in the evolution of America.

The artist who created the statue for the Lincoln Memorial, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) is America's best-known sculptor of public monuments. Monument Man is the first comprehensive biography of this fascinating figure and his illustrious career. Full of rich detail and beautiful archival photographs, Monument Man is a nuanced study of a preeminent artist whose evolution ran parallel to, and deeply influenced, the development of American sculpture, iconography, and historical memory. Monument Man was specially commissioned by Chesterwood / National Trust for Historic Preservation. The release will coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Chesterwood, his country home and studio, as a public site and with a major renovation of the Lincoln Memorial. The book includes a comprehensive geographical guide to French's public work.

Ubiquitous and enigmatic, the historical Lincoln, the literary Lincoln, even the cinematic Lincoln have all proved both fascinating and irresistible. Though some 16,000 books have been written about him, there is always more to say, new aspects of his life to consider, new facets of his persona to explore. Enlightening and entertaining, Exploring Lincoln offers a selection of sixteen papers presented at the Lincoln Forum symposia over the past three years. Shining new light on particular aspects of Lincoln and his tragically abbreviated presidency, Exploring Lincoln presents a compelling snapshot of current Lincoln scholarship and a fascinating window into understanding America's greatest president.

For the 150th anniversary, Harold Holzer (The Civil War in 150 Objects) presents an unprecedented firsthand chronicle of one of the most pivotal moments in American history. On April 14, 1865, Good Friday, the Civil War claimed its ultimate sacrifice. President Lincoln Assassinated!! recaptures the dramatic immediacy of Lincoln s assassination, the hunt for the conspirators and their military trial, and the nation s mourning for the martyred president. The fateful story is told in more than eighty original documents eyewitness reports, medical records, trial transcripts, newspaper articles, speeches, letters, diary entries, and poems by more than seventy-five participants and observers, including the assassin John Wilkes Booth and Boston Corbett, the soldier who shot him. Courtroom testimony exposes the intricacies of the plot to kill the president; eulogies by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Phillips, and Benjamin Disraeli and poetry by Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and Julia Ward Howe give eloquent voice to grief; two emotional speeches by Frederick Douglass one of them never before published reveal his evolving perspective on Lincoln s legacy. Together these voices combine to reveal the full panorama of one the most shocking and tragic events in our history."

"Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847-1865 by Ward Hill Lamon remains an essential resource for anyone who wishes to know more about the inner workings of the Lincoln White House, and the humor, honesty, and kindness characteristic of the extraordinary man who fought to restore the Union and end slavery in America. It is a matter of wonder that not until Salvador Litvak decided to dramatize the Lincoln-Lamon friendship in his 2013 motion picture, Saving Lincoln-which inspired this long-needed, highly welcome reissue-that no playwright or filmmaker has ever mined this incredibly rich resource, or for that matter the unique relationship between the biographer and his celebrated subject, and the inexplicable friendship that most Lincoln hagiographers preferred to erase from history."
- From the foreword by Harold Holzer
This completely new edition of Ward Hill Lamon's book includes the text and source documents from the 1895 and 1911 editions, plus an in-depth foreword by Harold Holzer, an introduction by Saving Lincoln director Salvador Litvak, and many of the Civil War photographs used to make the film. The original book has been redesigned for enhanced readability, and an index has been added.
Saving Lincoln is the true story of President Abraham Lincoln and his closest friend, U.S. Marshal Ward Hill Lamon, featuring sets created from actual Civil War photographs.
"An important film that must be seen. Saving Lincoln is moving, ingenious, original and impressive."
- Michael Medved, syndicated radio host
"A film with personality... shows the human side of the President."
- Louis Saenz, NPR

One of our most eminent Lincoln scholars, winner of a Lincoln Prize for his "Lincoln at Cooper Union, " examines the four months between Lincoln's election and inauguration, when the president-elect made the most important decision of his coming presidency -- there would be no compromise on slavery or secession of the slaveholding states, even at the cost of civil war.

Abraham Lincoln first demonstrated his determination and leadership in the Great Secession Winter -- the four months between his election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861 -- when he rejected compromises urged on him by Republicans and Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, that might have preserved the Union a little longer but would have enshrined slavery for generations. Though Lincoln has been criticized by many historians for failing to appreciate the severity of the secession crisis that greeted his victory, Harold Holzer shows that the presidentelect waged a shrewd and complex campaign to prevent the expansion of slavery while vainly trying to limit secession to a few Deep South states.

During this most dangerous White House transition in American history, the country had two presidents: one powerless (the president-elect, possessing no constitutional authority), the other paralyzed (the incumbent who refused to act). Through limited, brilliantly timed and crafted public statements, determined private letters, tough political pressure, and personal persuasion, Lincoln guaranteed the integrity of the American political process of majority rule, sounded the death knell of slavery, and transformed not only his own image but that of the presidency, even while making inevitable the war that would be necessary to make these achievements permanent.

"Lincoln President-Elect" is the first book to concentrate on Lincoln's public stance and private agony during these months and on the momentous consequences when he first demonstrated his determination and leadership. Holzer recasts Lincoln from an isolated prairie politician yet to establish his greatness, to a skillful shaper of men and opinion and an immovable friend of freedom at a decisive moment when allegiance to the founding credo "all men are created equal" might well have been sacrificed.

William Osborn Stoddard, Lincoln's ""third secretary"" who worked alongside John G. Nicolay and John Hay in the White House from 1861 to 1865, completed his autobiography in 1907, one of more than one hundred books he wrote. An abridged version was published by his son in 1955 as ""Lincoln's Third Secretary: The Memoirs of William O. Stoddard."" In this new, edited version, ""Lincoln's White House Secretary: The Adventurous Life of William O. Stoddard"", Harold Holzer provides an introduction, afterword, and annotations and includes comments by Stoddard's granddaughter, Eleanor Stoddard. The elegantly written volume gives readers a window into the politics, life, and culture of the mid-nineteenth century. Stoddard's bracing writing, eye for detail, and ear for conversation bring a novelistic excitement to a story of childhood observations, young friendships, hardscrabble frontier farming, early hints of the slavery crisis, the workings of the Lincoln administration, and the strange course of war and reunion in the southwest. More than a clerk, Stoddard was an adventurous explorer of American life, a farmer, editor, soldier, and politician. Enhanced by seventeen illustrations, this narrative sympathetically draws the reader into the life and times of Lincoln's third secretary, adding to our understanding of the events and the larger-than-life figures that shaped history.

"Lincoln at Cooper Union" explores Lincoln's most influential and widely reported pre-presidential address -- an extraordinary appeal by the western politician to the eastern elite that propelled him toward the Republican nomination for president. Delivered in New York in February 1860, the Cooper Union speech dispelled doubts about Lincoln's suitability for the presidency and reassured conservatives of his moderation while reaffirming his opposition to slavery to Republican progressives.

Award-winning Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer places Lincoln and his speech in the context of the times -- an era of racism, politicized journalism, and public oratory as entertainment -- and shows how the candidate framed the speech as an opportunity to continue his famous "debates" with his archrival Democrat Stephen A. Douglas on the question of slavery.

Holzer describes the enormous risk Lincoln took by appearing in New York, where he exposed himself to the country's most critical audience and took on Republican Senator William Henry Seward of New York, the front runner, in his own backyard. Then he recounts a brilliant and innovative public relations campaign, as Lincoln took the speech "on the road" in his successful quest for the presidency.