The Lincoln funeral and the nearly 1,700-mile epic journey of the funeral train was the biggest single event to happen in the lives of American citizens at the time. Eyewitness accounts and historic images present this remarkable journey of President Abraham Lincoln's remains, from the nation's Capitol to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. Reed draws from reports, documents, and contemporary narratives to finally fully present the event.
"[A]n astonishingly interesting interpretation…Fox is wonderfully shrewd and often dazzling." —Jill Lepore, New York Times Book Review Abraham Lincoln remains America’s most beloved leader. The fact that he was lampooned in his day as "ugly and grotesque" only made Lincoln more endearing to millions. In Lincoln’s Body, acclaimed cultural historian Richard Wightman Fox explores how deeply, and how differently, Americans—black and white, male and female, Northern and Southern—have valued our sixteenth president, from his own lifetime to the Hollywood biopics about him. Lincoln continues to survive in a body of memory that speaks volumes about our nation.
The effective end of the American Civil War on April 9, 1865, had hardly sunk in when, only five days later, another disaster stunned the battered and bloodied nation. On the night of April 9, Pres. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. There would be time for vengeful thoughts later, but first the Great Emancipator was going to get a royal send-off. At the center of what would become a three-week national funeral was a spectacular train that would carry Lincoln's remains, and those of his deceased son, from Washington, DC, to Springfield, Illinois. "The Lincoln Special" steamed slowly out of spring mists, allowing thousands of mourners lining the tracks a lingering view. It was a logistics miracle; a romantic pageant of sorrow and wonder, carried off flawlessly. Through the tears, however, was a sense that America's identity had turned a corner and was about to enter a dynamic and hopeful future. Author of nine books, Michael Leavy is an avid Civil War and railroad historian. Leavy has searched through archives to locate rare photographs and new details and dispel some lingering myths surrounding this tragic but formative American event.
“An intimate character portrait and fascinating inquiry into the basis of Lincoln’s energetic, curious mind.”—The Wall Street Journal WINNER OF THE BARONDESS/LINCOLN AWARD • From the New York Times bestselling author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses, a revelatory glimpse into the intellectual journey of our sixteenth president through his private notes to himself, explored together here for the first time A deeply private man, shut off even to those who worked closely with him, Abraham Lincoln often captured “his best thoughts,” as he called them, in short notes to himself. He would work out his personal stances on the biggest issues of the day, never expecting anyone to see these frank, unpolished pieces of writing, which he’d then keep close at hand, in desk drawers and even in his top hat. The profound importance of these notes has been overlooked, because the originals are scattered across several different archives and have never before been brought together and examined as a coherent whole. Now, renowned Lincoln historian Ronald C. White walks readers through twelve of Lincoln’s most important private notes, showcasing our greatest president’s brilliance and empathy, but also his very human anxieties and ambitions. We look over Lincoln’s shoulder as he grapples with the problem of slavery, attempting to find convincing rebuttals to those who supported the evil institution (“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”); prepares for his historic debates with Stephen Douglas; expresses his private feelings after a defeated bid for a Senate seat (“With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure”); voices his concerns about the new Republican Party’s long-term prospects; develops an argument for national unity amidst a secession crisis that would ultimately rend the nation in two; and, for a president many have viewed as not religious, develops a sophisticated theological reflection in the midst of the Civil War (“it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party”). Additionally, in a historic first, all 111 Lincoln notes are transcribed in the appendix, a gift to scholars and Lincoln buffs alike. These are notes Lincoln never expected anyone to read, put into context by a writer who has spent his career studying Lincoln’s life and words. The result is a rare glimpse into the mind and soul of one of our nation’s most important figures.
For all that has been written about the Civil War's impact on the urban northeast and southern home fronts, we have until now lacked a detailed picture of how it affected specific communities in the Union's Midwestern heartland. Nicole Etcheson offers a deeply researched microhistory of one such community--Putnam County, Indiana, from the Compromise of 1850 to the end of Reconstruction-and shows how its citizens responded to and were affected by the war. Delving into the everyday life of a small town in one of the nineteenth century's bellwether states, A Generation at War considers the Civil War within a much broader chronological context than other accounts. It ranges across three decades to show how the issues of the day-particularly race and sectionalism-temporarily displaced economic and temperance concerns, how the racial attitudes of northern whites changed, and how a generation of young men and women coped with the transformative experience of war. Etcheson interrelates an impressively wide range of topics. Through temperance and alcohol she illustrates nativism and class consciousness, while through an account of a murder she probes ethnicity, politics, and gender. She reveals how some women wanted to "maintain dependence" and how the war gave independence to others, as pensions allowed them to survive without a male provider. And she chronicles the major shift in race relations as the most revolutionary change: blacks had been excluded from Indiana in the 1850s but were invited into Putnam County by 1880. Etcheson personalizes all of these issues through human stories, bringing to life people previously ignored by history, whether veterans demanding recognition of their sacrifice, women speaking out against liquor, or Copperheads parading against Republicans. The introduction of race with the North Carolina Exodusters marks a particularly effective lens for seeing how the idealism unleashed by Lincoln's war influenced the North. Etcheson also helps us understand how white Southerners tried to reunify the country on the basis of shared white racism. Drawing on personal papers, local newspapers, pension petitions, Exoduster pamphlets, and more, Etcheson demonstrates how microhistory helps give new meaning to larger events. A Generation at War opens a new window on the impact of the Civil War on the agrarian North.
The April 1945 journey of FDR's funeral train became a thousand-mile odyssey, fraught with heartbreak and scandal. As it passed through the night, few of the grieving onlookers gave thought to what might be happening behind the Pullman shades, where women whispered and men tossed back highballs. Inside was a Soviet spy, a newly widowed Eleanor Roosevelt, who had just discovered that her husband's mistress was in the room with him when he died, all the Supreme Court justices, and incoming president Harry S. Truman who was scrambling to learn secrets FDR had never shared with him. Weaving together information from long-forgotten diaries and declassified Secret Service documents, journalist and historian Robert Klara enters the private world on board that famous train. He chronicles the three days during which the country grieved and despaired as never before, and a new president hammered out the policies that would galvanize a country in mourning and win the Second World War.
In Bloody Crimes, James L. Swanson—the Edgar® Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt—brings to life two epic events of the Civil War era: the thrilling chase to apprehend Confederate president Jefferson Davis in the wake of the Lincoln assassination and the momentous 20 -day funeral that took Abraham Lincoln’s body home to Springfield. A true tale full of fascinating twists and turns, and lavishly illustrated with dozens of rare historical images—some never before seen—Bloody Crimes is a fascinating companion to Swanson’s Manhunt and a riveting true-crime thriller that will electrify civil war buffs, general readers, and everyone in between.
Told through a young boy's eyes, the sober mood of the country after the Lincoln assassination is presented as he and others wait to pay their respects as Lincoln's funeral train travels from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, IL, in 1865.
