The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln

How Lincoln Mastered his Enemies to Win the Civil War, Free the Slaves, and Preserve the Union

Larry Tagg

• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781611211269
• eBook ISBN: 9781611211276
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

A timely look at the atmosphere of political hostility surrounding the Civil War, and the venom faced by America's sixteenth president.
 
Today, Abraham Lincoln is a beloved American icon, widely considered to be our best president. It was not always so. This book takes a look at what Lincoln's contemporaries actually thought and said about him during his lifetime, when political hostilities, and ultimately civil war, raged.
 
The era in which our sixteenth president lived and governed was the most rough-and-tumble in the history of American politics. The hostility behind the criticism aimed at Lincoln by the great men of his time, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, is startling, the spectacular prejudice against him often shocking for its cruelty, intensity, and unrelenting vigor. The plain truth is that Lincoln was deeply reviled by many in his time. This book is both an entertaining read and a well-researched, serious look at the political context that begat the president's predicament.
 
Lincoln's humanity has been unintentionally trivialized by some historians and writers who have hidden away the real man in a patina of bronze. This book helps us better understand the man he was, and how history is better and more clearly viewed through a long-distance lens.
 
"Not the warm and fuzzy portrait we're used to seeing . . . An eye-opening study, the first of its kind to focus on what Lincoln's contemporaries really thought of him. On the other hand, this is not mean-spirited Lincoln-bashing . . . Tagg assesses his presidency through the social and political context of mid-19th century America. It was a time, for example, when 'the rabid press routinely destroyed the reputations of public men,' when the stature of the presidency, 'stained by feeble performances from a string of the poorest presidents in the nation's history,' had plunged over decades." — Civil War Times Magazine

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction and Acknowledgments
• Part One: Lincoln’s Entrance
• Chapter 1: Lincoln Comes to Washington
• Chapter 2: The Presidency
• Chapter 3: The Rise of Party Politics
• Chapter 4: The Spoils System
• Chapter 5: The Slavery Debate
• Chapter 6: Lincoln’s Nomination
• Chapter 7: The 1860 Presidential Campaign
• Chapter 8: Lincoln’s Election
• Chapter 9: Lincoln in the Secession Winter
• Chapter 10: The Flight Toward Compromise
• Chapter 11: The Journey to Washington
• Chapter 12: Lincoln and the Merchants
• Part Two: Lincoln’s First Eighteen Months
• Chapter 13: Lincoln’s First Impression
• Chapter 14: The First Inaugural
• Chapter 15: The Struggle with Seward, Then Sumter
• Chapter 16: The Capital Surrounded
• Chapter 17: The Hundred Days to Bull Run
• Chapter 18: The Rise of the Radical Republicans
• Chapter 19: The Phony War of 1861
• Chapter 20: Democrats Disappear
• Chapter 21: A Military House Divided
• Part Three: Lincoln’s Proclamation
• Chapter 22: Lincoln, Race, and the North
• Chapter 23: Lincoln Awaits a Victory
• Chapter 24: Emancipation Promised
• Chapter 25: Emancipation Rebuked
• Chapter 26: Emancipation Proclaimed
• Chapter 27: The Rise of the Copperheads
• Chapter 28: Lincoln Addresses the Nation
• Part Four: Lincoln’s Reelection
• Chapter 29: The 1864 Republican Nomination
• Chapter 30: The Fall and the Temptation
• Chapter 31: The 1864 Election
• Chapter 32: The War at the End of the War
• Epilogue: The Sudden Saint
• Sources and Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Interview
• Author