Abraham Lincoln: A Life

by Michael Burlingame

Overview

Now in paperback, this award-winning biography has been hailed as the definitive portrait of Lincoln.

Named One of the 10 Top Lincoln Books by Chicago TribuneNamed One of the 5 Best Books of 2009 by The AtlanticWinner, 2008 PROSE Award for Best Book in U.S. History and Biography/Autobiography, Association of American PublishersWinner, 2010 Lincoln Prize from the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College

In the first multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America’s greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America’s sixteenth president.

Volume 1 covers Lincoln’s early childhood, his experiences as a farm boy in Indiana and Illinois, his legal training, and the political ambition that led to a term in Congress in the 1840s. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln’s life during his presidency and the Civil War, narrating in fascinating detail the crisis over Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s own battles with relentless office seekers, hostile newspaper editors, and incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also offers new interpretations of Lincoln’s private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd and the untimely deaths of two sons to disease.

But through it all—his difficult childhood, his contentious political career, a fratricidal war, and tragic personal losses—Lincoln preserved a keen sense of humor and acquired a psychological maturity that proved to be the North’s most valuable asset in winning the Civil War.

Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, this landmark publication establishes Burlingame as the most assiduous Lincoln biographer of recent memory and brings Lincoln alive to modern readers as never before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421409733
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	03/21/2013
Pages:	960
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Michael Burlingame (MYSTIC, CT) is Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. He is the author or editor of several books about Lincoln, including Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks; The Black Man’s President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality; and An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd.

Table of Contents

Author's Note
1. "I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World" Childhood in Kentucky (1809–1816)
2. "I Used to Be a Slave" Boyhood and Adolescence in Indiana (1816–1830)
3. "Separated from His Father, He Studied English Grammar" New Salem (1831–1834)
4. "A Napoleon of Astuteness and Political Finesse" Frontier Legislator (1834–1837)
5. "We Must Fight the Devil with Fire" Slasher-Gaff Politico in Springfield (1837–1841)
6. "It Would Just Kill Me to Marry Mary Todd" Courtship and Marriage (1840–1842)
7. "I Have Got the Preacher by the Balls" Pursuing a Seat in Congress (1843–1847)
8. "A Strong but Judicious Enemy to Slavery" Congressman Lincoln (1847–1849)
9. "I Was Losing Interest in Politics and Went to the Practice of the Law with Greater Earnestness Than Ever Before" Midlife Crisis (1849–1854)
10. "Aroused as He Had Never Been Before" Reentering Politics (1854–1855)
11. "Unite with Us, and Help Us to Triumph" Building the Illinois Republican Party (1855–1857)
12. "A House Divided" Lincoln vs. Douglas (1857–1858)
13. A David Greater than the Democratic Goliath" The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
14. "That Presidential Grub Gnaws Deep" Pursuing the Republican Nomination (1859–1860)
15. "The Most Available Presidential Candidate for Unadulterated Republicans" The Chicago Convention (May 1860)
16. "I Have Been Elected Mainly on the Cry 'Honest Old Abe'" The Presidential Campaign (May–November 1860)
17. "I Will Suffer Death Before I Will Consent to Any Concession or Compromise": President-elect in Springfield (1860–1861)
18. "What If I Appoint Cameron, Whose Very Name Stinks in the Nostrils of the People for His Corruption?": Cabinet-Making in Springfield (1860–1861)
19. "The Man Does Not Live Who Is More Devoted to Peace Than I Am, But It May Be Necessary to Put the Foot Down Firmly" From Springfield to Washington, February 11-22, 1861
20. "I Am Now Going To Be Master" Inauguration, February 23-March 4, 1861
21. "A Man So Busy Letting Rooms in One End of His House, That He Can't Stop to Put Out the Fire that is Burning in the Other" Distributing Patronage, March-April 1861
22. "You Can Have No Conflict Without Being Yourselves the Aggressors" The Fort Sumter Crisis, March-April 1861
23. "I Intend to Give Blows" The Hundred Days, April-July 1861
24. "Sitzkrieg" The Phony War, August 1861-January 1862
25. "This Damned Old House" The Lincoln Family in the Executive Mansion
26. "I Expect to Maintain This Contest Until Successful, or Till I Die, or Am Conquered, or My Term Expires, or Congress or the Country Forsakes Me": From the Slough of Despond to the Gates of Richmond, January-July, 1862
27. "The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery" January-July 1862
28. "Would You Prosecute the War with Elder-Stalk Squirts, Charged with Rose Water?" The Soft War Turns Hard, July-September 1862
29. "The Great Event of the Nineteenth Century" September-December 1862
30. "Go Forward, and Give Us Victories" From the Mud March to Gettysburg, January-July 1863
31. "The Signs Look Better" Victory at the Polls and in the Field, July-November 1863
32. "I Hope to Stand Firm Enough to Not Go Backward, and YetNot Go Forward Fast Enough to Wreck the Country's Cause": Reconstruction and Renomination, November 1863-June 1864
33. "Hold on with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible" The Grand Offensive, May-August, 1864
34. "The Wisest Radical of All" Reelection, September-November, 1864
35. "Let the Thing Be Pressed" Victory at Last, November 1864-April 1865
36. "I Feel a Presentiment That I Shall Not Outlast theRebellion. When It Is Over, My Work Will Be Done" April 9-15, 1865
Notes

What People are Saying About This

Kenneth J. Winkle

Burlingame has developed a familiarity with the details of Lincoln's life that is truly authoritative, even definitive, and he has genuinely earned his reputation for knowing more about Lincoln than just about anyone who has ever studied him.

— Kenneth J. Winkle, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln scholars have waited anxiously for this book for decades. Its triumphant publication proves it was well worth the wait. Few scholars have written with greater insight about the psychology of Lincoln. No one in recent history has uncovered more fresh sources than Michael Burlingame. This profound and masterful portrait will be read and studied for years to come.

Gerald J. Prokopowicz

The remarkable breadth of Burlingame's research has resulted in a book unlike anything else written about Lincoln. It will be a major contribution to the field.

— Gerald J. Prokopowicz, East Carolina University

From the Publisher

Lincoln scholars have waited anxiously for this book for decades. Its triumphant publication proves it was well worth the wait. Few scholars have written with greater insight about the psychology of Lincoln. No one in recent history has uncovered more fresh sources than Michael Burlingame. This profound and masterful portrait will be read and studied for years to come.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin

The remarkable breadth of Burlingame's research has resulted in a book unlike anything else written about Lincoln. It will be a major contribution to the field.
—Gerald J. Prokopowicz, East Carolina University

Burlingame has developed a familiarity with the details of Lincoln's life that is truly authoritative, even definitive, and he has genuinely earned his reputation for knowing more about Lincoln than just about anyone who has ever studied him.
—Kenneth J. Winkle, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Editorial Reviews

"The granddaddy of all the recent books [on Lincoln] is Michael Burlingame's Abraham Lincoln: A Life... monumental in size, depth and scholarship, this is the new standard biography of our time and surpasses all other life portraits of our 16th president, and is the most important book of the bicentennial."

Washington Times - James L. Swanson

"The author knows more about Lincoln than any other living person."

New York Review of Books - James McPherson

"This magisterial work tells a rich, thoroughly documented, birth-to-death story of America's greatest president. Its bulk is formidable, but it holds countless rewards for undaunted readers."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Jane Henderson

"A monumental boxed effort that weighs in at 10 pounds... The result is a picture of Lincoln from all sides, in a style that is relentless but not daunting."

Bloomberg News

"The two-volume set is being heralded as the ultimate new biography of Lincoln, an essential work to be used by all future biographers of the 16th president."

Grand Rapids Press - Anne Byle

"No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame."

Atlantic Monthly - Christopher Hitchens

"Most thorough account of the development of Lincoln as a man and politician against the backdrop of America's struggle to mature as an idea and a nation... Not a Lincoln for our times, but the Lincoln of his times, and future biographers would do well to take note(s)."

Books and Culture: A Christian Review

"A magisterial enterprise."

New York Times - William Safire

"An exhaustive and stylishly written biography."

Gazette - Greg Rienzi

"A complete view of Lincoln's life... thorough."

U.S. News & World Report - Diane Cole

"Burlingame very likely knows more about Lincoln than anyone who's ever lived, including Mary Todd, and his biography, 20 years in the writing, has a revelation on every page, dug out during the biographer's tireless research into musty libraries and forgotten attics that no one has ever thought to look in before. If there is anything knowable that you want to know about Lincoln, this is the place to find it."

American Spectator - Andrew Ferguson

"A monumental and meticulous two-volume study of the 16th president... should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in Lincoln."

Atlantic - Mark Bowden

"Burlingame is a towering figure in Lincoln scholarship, and students of the 16th president have been waiting for this book for years. For all his learning—Burlingame may know more about Lincoln and his era than anyone in the world—his take on his subject is fresh, and he doesn't gloss over Lincoln's less appealing attributes. Abraham Lincoln comes as close to being the definitive biography as anything the world has seen in decades."

Time.com

"These monumental volumes deserve a wide readership."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"If you aspire to Ultimate Lincoln Knowledge this is a must-read."

Chicago Tribune

"The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth has generated a plethora of Lincoln-related items, but none impresses more than this two-volume biography... Essential."

Choice

Burlingame very likely knows more about Lincoln than anyone who's ever lived, including Mary Todd, and his biography, 20 years in the writing, has a revelation on every page, dug out during the biographer's tireless research into musty libraries and forgotten attics that no one has ever thought to look in before. If there is anything knowable that you want to know about Lincoln, this is the place to find it.

— Andrew Ferguson

American Spectator

Most thorough account of the development of Lincoln as a man and politician against the backdrop of America's struggle to mature as an idea and a nation... Not a Lincoln for our times, but the Lincoln of his times, and future biographers would do well to take note(s).

Books & Culture: A Christian Review

No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame.

— Christopher Hitchens

Atlantic Monthly

The granddaddy of all the recent books [on Lincoln] is Michael Burlingame's Abraham Lincoln: A Life... monumental in size, depth and scholarship, this is the new standard biography of our time and surpasses all other life portraits of our 16th president, and is the most important book of the bicentennial.

— James L. Swanson

Washington Times

The two-volume set is being heralded as the ultimate new biography of Lincoln, an essential work to be used by all future biographers of the 16th president.

— Anne Byle

Grand Rapids Press

An exhaustive and stylishly written biography.

— Greg Rienzi

Gazette

A magisterial enterprise.

— William Safire

New York Times

A complete view of Lincoln's life... thorough.

— Diane Cole

U.S. News & World Report

The author knows more about Lincoln than any other living person.
—New York Review of Books

Lincoln has, of course, been the subject of an extensive body of literature due to the unquestioned importance of his presidency, his remarkable rise from frontier hardship to commander in chief, and his composition of some of the great works of American statesmanship. Burlingame describes all of this in such an impressive fashion that even readers already very well-versed on Lincoln's life and the Civil War will find much of value here. . . Burlingame has set a very high bar for future students of the Great Emancipator. . . It is unlikely that [a study] will appear anytime soon that matches the breadth and depth of coverage found in Burlingame's study, or challenges its place as the outstanding multi-volume account of Lincoln's life.
—Ethan S. Rafuse, Blue and Gray Magazine

From the Publisher

"The author knows more about Lincoln than any other living person."

New York Review of Books

"Lincoln has, of course, been the subject of an extensive body of literature due to the unquestioned importance of his presidency, his remarkable rise from frontier hardship to commander in chief, and his composition of some of the great works of American statesmanship. Burlingame describes all of this in such an impressive fashion that even readers already very well-versed on Lincoln's life and the Civil War will find much of value here... Burlingame has set a very high bar for future students of the Great Emancipator... It is unlikely that [a study] will appear anytime soon that matches the breadth and depth of coverage found in Burlingame's study, or challenges its place as the outstanding multi-volume account of Lincoln's life."

Blue and Gray Magazine - Ethan S. Rafuse