Book Review: Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

There's probably a million and one biographies of Abraham Lincoln available, from a ten-page kids book to a multi-volume academic tome. This 700-page biography (the last hundred are notes, bibliography, and index) sits in the middle, with a lot of well-researched details, but not every last detail. Author David Donald says his specific angle in telling Lincoln's story is to go back to the original sources, Lincoln's writings and the writings of the people he knew, along with extensive newspaper articles. Many papers in the 1840s to 1860s had their political biases, so researching them all provides a balanced view. Donald's ultimate goal is to get a sense of Lincoln as a person, what he thought and felt about his life and times. 

The book traces the whole of Lincoln's life, starting from his birth in Kentucky under humble circumstances. He did not have much education and wandered from job to job in his younger days. He wound up in Springfield, Illinois, where he became a lawyer. Reading as much as he could, he prepared meticulously for cases. Lincoln spent a lot of time at various intellectual clubs where the members discussed politics and other things. He vacillated between political service and lawyer work. 

Lincoln moved up the political ladder in fits and starts, with a mix of success and failure. The situation around slavery was complicated. Balancing out the various extremes was a constant battle, leading Lincoln and his compatriots to form a new political party, sometimes called the Unionists, eventually becoming the Republicans. Lincoln brought together various factions, even in his own presidential cabinet, to get different points of view and to test his ideas on widely different thinkers. His ability to change plans and find different ways to achieve goals is fascinating to read.

The book is most interested his personality. He loved to tell stories and jokes, sometimes less refined than appropriate for his surroundings. He was shy with women, not knowing how best to woo someone. His first engagement to Mary Todd was broken off. They came back together and lived a marriage that was not always easy. Mary had ambitions for her husband and enjoyed the finer things in life. Lincoln was more laid back and did not care so much for his appearance (he was not an attractive man, by all accounts) or even what he ate. While he did not have mood swings, he did have times of joyful exuberance and times of exhausted sorrow. His outward Christianity (he did not attend any specific church) had its grounding in a sense of fate or destiny controlling people's lives. His fatalism made him more courageous and more melancholic. He was a man who rose to the occasion even if he did not feel comfortable doing so. 

This book gives a lot of details to show how Lincoln lived. He's elected to president less than half way through the book. The presidential years are focused on his activities in office, mostly dealing with the American Civil War and the various factions in Congress and the press. His conduct of the war was mostly providing supplies and troops...and trying to get the various Union generals to attack their opponents. There's no descriptions of individual battles, only of overall strategies and the Lincoln's changing opinions as he saw how the generals performed. He made many visits to the army headquarters and battlefields, partly out of curiosity, partly to know what was going on and how he could help. Much of his efforts was with Congress and his own cabinet members.

The end is abrupt--Lincoln is shot on April 14, 1865, and dies the next day. The book ends in a crowded back room where Secretary of Stanton says, "Now, he belongs to the ages." The author provides no summary of Lincoln's legacy or the aftermath of his death. The book is a look at Lincoln as a man who rose up in extraordinary circumstance to lead the nation through one of its darkest times.

Highly recommended.

Sample quote on Lincoln's storytelling: "Most stories he recounted simply because he thought they were funny. Laughing along with his visitors helped break the ice. But he also knew how to use storytelling to deflect criticism, to avoid giving an answer to a difficult question, and to get rid of a persistent interviewer." [p. 259]