Abraham Lincoln brought together one of the most remarkable Cabinet's in presidential history. Among them was Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. Welles describes his role and that of many other prominent men of his day in this fascinating chronicle of the American Civil War and its aftermath. You'll get an inside view of the machinations within and around Lincoln's administration, along with personal anecdotes. Welles brilliantly took a Navy Department in disarray and forged it into a formidable instrument of Union power. He was instrumental in helping to win the war. Long used as a primary source for Lincoln scholars, you can now read Gideon Welles wonderful diaries on your Kindle, well-formatted for a superior reading experience. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

A full-scale life and times biography of an important Civil War figure.

A great Confederate defender of "States rights" paradoxically led the program after the War to impose a national education program that first finished off the South and later became a model for social engineering in the North and around the world.

This collection of highly readable and accessible essays on Lincoln's legacy offers a wide array of perspectives on the enduring impact of the nation's greatest president on leaders, thinkers, and American history. The book explores how Lincoln's words and deeds have influenced the pursuit of justice and freedom and the practice of democracy in the century and a half since he governed.

“With penetrating insight, Lehrman unfolds the contrasts and similarities between these two leaders . . . I savored every page of this magnificent work.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute of Washington’s 2019 book prize Lewis E. Lehrman, a renowned historian and National Humanities Medal winner, gives new perspective on two of the greatest English-speaking statesmen—and their remarkable leadership in wars of national survival. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, as commanders in chief, led their nations to victory—Lincoln in the Civil War, Churchill in World War II. They became revered leaders—statesmen for all time. Yet these two world-famous war leaders have never been seriously compared at book length. Acclaimed historian Lewis Lehrman, in his pathbreaking comparison of both statesmen, finds that Lincoln and Churchill—with very different upbringings and contrasting personalities—led their war efforts, to some extent, in similar ways. As supreme war lords, they were guided not only by principles of honor, duty, and freedom, but also by the practical wisdom to know when, where, and how to apply these principles. Even their writings and speeches were swords in battle. Gifted literary stylists, both men relied on the written and spoken word to steel their citizens throughout desperate and prolonged wars. And both statesmen unexpectedly left office near the end of their wars—Lincoln by the bullet, Churchill by the ballot. They made mistakes, which Lehrman considers carefully. But the author emphasizes that, despite setbacks, they never gave up. “Deeply researched and elegantly written. . . . a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the past. By expertly conjoining two great leaders in a single volume, he has enhanced our understanding of both.” ―The Wall Street Journal Includes illustrations and photographs

With the death of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, Andrew Johnson was plunged into a national political morass. Johnson, a Southern Democrat and advocate of states' rights, had been chosen as Lincoln's second-term running mate. Now as Lincoln's successor, he faced a most difficult trial -- a divisiveness that threatened to undo the fabric of a nation desperately trying to mend itself after a great civil strife. For this self-educated tailor from the hills of Tennessee it would prove to be a formidable task. Albeit no stranger to national politics, Johnson was ill-prepared for this sudden change of fortune. Absent from Washington since 1862, he had limited political allies and little ability to foster new ones. Adding to his difficulties, he was a Democrat serving in a Republican administration and a Southerner in the midst of a victorious North. It would have been a daunting task for the ablest of politicians -- nearly impossible for one lacking political acumen. Taking the helm as the 17th President of the United States, Johnson continued Lincoln's effort to reconstruct the Union following the Civil War. While Congress was in recess, he began his restoration process by pardoning many ex-Confederates who were willing to take the oath of allegiance, and by allowing the Southern states to re-establish their governments. But there were radical elements in Congress who bitterly opposed Johnson's approach to Reconstruction. They objected to his rapidity in bringing the former Confederate states back into the Union and his reluctance to support suffrage for the freed slaves. Likely, even Lincoln would have butted up against the same obstacles, but Johnson lacked his predecessor's finesse and soon found himself on a collision course with Congress. Andrew Johnson learned his craft as a politician as he rose from alderman in an Eastern Tennessee village to president of the United States. The Constitution was his fundamental authority and ultimate resource on all questions of state. He was an ardent stump speaker and was quite adept at power politics in the halls of Congress. Yet as the Chief Executive he showed such little political skill in assessing opposition and conquering obstacles during Reconstruction, that the party that put him in the White House ultimately turned from him and he was forced to defend his actions before the bar of the Senate in the country's first presidential impeachment trial. Throughout the journey the Tennessee Tailor, born in abject poverty, fashioned himself as a man of the people. He always held a strong empathy for the common man and equally strong antipathy for members of the aristocracy. Having come from the lower class, mudsill as he referred to himself, he carried a deep compassion for the labourer in the workshop as well as the farmer the field. This book presents the story of this president.

"Born to a well to do, connected family in 1816, Montgomery C. Meigs graduated from West Point as an engineer. He helped build America's forts and served under Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigation improvements on the Mississippi River. As a young man, he designed the Washington aqueducts in a city where people were dying from contaminated water. He built the spectacular wings and the massive dome of the brand new US Capitol. Introduced to President Lincoln by Secretary of State William Seward, Meigs became Lincoln's Quartermaster. It was during the Civil War that Meigs became a national hero. He commanded Ulysses S. Grant's base of supplies that made Union victories, including Gettysburg, possible. He sustained Sherman's army in Georgia, and the March to the Sea. After the war, Meigs built Arlington Cemetery (on land that had been Robert E. Lee's home). [The author] brings Meigs alive in [this book]. We get to know this major military figure that Lincoln and his Cabinet and Generals called the key to victory and learn how he fed, clothed, and armed the Union Army using his ingenuity and devotion"--Amazon.com.

In 1866, President Andrew Johnson was trying to find solutions to a bewildering array of immediate post-Civil War challenges: what to do about the recently liberated slaves, how to bring the South back into the Union, whether or not former members of the Confederacy should be pardoned and forgiven for their war time acts and building a thriving national economy that would provide jobs for millions of new veterans. Confronted with an increasingly assertive Congress that had been frustrated by its lack of influence during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson decided to take his case directly to the American people for the fall mid-term elections of 1866, becoming the first president in history to actively engage in a political campaign. In a trade ride in which he was joined by the hero Ulysses S. Grant, the very young George Armstrong Custer, and the legendary William Seward, the secretary of state who was viciously attacked on the same night that Lincoln was murdered, Johnson spoke to hundreds of thousands of voters from New York to Chicago and St. Louis. But because of his confrontational, intemperate rhetorical style and habit of engaging hecklers in direct verbal battle, Johnson alienated more people than he won over, resulting not only in a thumping defeat for his cause at the polls, but a move to impeach and remove him from office by opponents who were convinced that Johnson's behavior on the Swing Around the Circle showed that he was mentally unbalanced. Repeatedly referred to by historians and reporters in the decades since, the Swing Around the Circle has never been explored in one single book until now.

Reproduction of the original: Charles Sumner; his complete works, volume XII by Lee and Shepard

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.