We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends

From Publishers Weekly
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Donald delivers a highly readable portrait of Lincoln's closest friendships in a volume that nicely complements his preeminent biography of our 16th president. Donald's focus is on six key players: Joshua Speed, William H. Herndon, Orville H. Browning, William H. Seward and the president's private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. With regard to the young Springfield entrepreneur Speed, Donald astutely dismantles the so-called "evidence" for a homoerotic relationship, pointing out that during the four years Speed and Lincoln shared a room and a bed (then a common practice among budget-conscious young men) both were quite energetically involved in quests for wives. Interestingly, no less than three of the six friends delineated by Donald also became Lincoln's biographers. William H. Herndon-about whom Donald has previously written a book-started out as Lincoln's law partner in the fall of 1844 and wound up doing vital, sometimes scandalous, sometimes spurious research culminating in a seminal biography published in 1889. The work of Nicolay and Hay was primarily intended to refute much of Herndon's scandalous accounts regarding Lincoln's lineage, frontier romances and unhappy marriage. Perhaps the most complex and informative of Donald's portraits is that of Orville Browning, a longtime Springfield associate and fellow attorney who served briefly as senator from Illinois during Lincoln's first term and whom Lincoln passed over no less than three times when given the opportunity to nominate him to the Supreme Court. Friendship had its limits.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Behind a facade of garrulousness, Abraham Lincoln was an intensely private man. He could spend hours regaling friends and associates with humorous, often scatological stories; but he rarely confided his hopes, dreams, or fears to even his "closest" friends, and the more honest among them admitted that he remained a mystery. Donald, who has previously written a comprehensive biography of Lincoln (titled simply Lincoln, 1995), is professor emeritus of American history and civilization at Harvard. Here, he presents Lincoln as his friends perceived him. Donald utilizes the recollections and memoirs of a variety of Lincoln's partners, friends, and political allies; to varying degrees, all could claim to have known Lincoln well, but as Donald makes apparent, they did not. Still, given the evidence they provide, one naturally can speculate about Lincoln's "real" nature as well as the influence people and events had in forming that nature. Donald's speculations alternate between being well founded and stretching credulity. On the whole, he provides a useful and enjoyable addition to the store of knowledge about this admired national icon. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Chicago Tribune It's unlikely that anyone today knows more about Lincoln than David Herbert Donald...."We Are Lincoln Men" bristles with erudition....This book contains much to entertain a broad popular audience.

Civil War Times A wise, provocative, and scrupulously judicious book that...probes insightfully into Lincoln's complex personality and ponders its impact on the Civil War era.

FROM OUR EDITORS

We define ourselves by our choice of friends. Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, demonstrates the validity of that old saw in a unique biography that presents Abraham Lincoln through the perceptions of his closest friends. In a sense, though, We Are Lincoln Men is a group portrait, a close-up of Honest Abe's most trusted inner circle. Donald focuses on six associates: Joshua Speed, William H. Herndon, Orville H. Browning, William H. Seward, John Nicolay, and John Hay. The depth of these friendships is perhaps indicated by the strength of their responses to the president's assassination: Three of the six friends profiled wrote extensive Lincoln biographies.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

We Are Lincoln Men" examines the significance of friendship in Abraham Lincoln's life and the role it played in his presidency. Though Lincoln had hundreds of acquaintances and dozens of admirers, he had almost no intimate friends. Behind his mask of affability and endless stream of humorous anecdotes, he maintained an inviolate reserve that only a few were ever able to penetrate. In this highly original book, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner David Herbert Donald examines, for the first time, these close friendships and explores their role in shaping Lincoln's career.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Donald writes about Lincoln with unmatched authority … David Herbert Donald has given us a good book to read. He has also given us a good book to argue with. — William Lee Miller

The Washington Post

According to We Are Lincoln Men, the insightful new work by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald, the Civil War president found little sanctuary in the company of friends. Raised in rural isolation and suffering the loss of his mother at a young age, Lincoln had difficulty forming intimate friendships. The author rightly notes that Lincoln's reserve kept all but a very few from drawing close to him. Basing his analysis on both traditional historical sources and the psychological literature on friendship, Donald concludes that the president was deprived of the advice and support that might have helped him avoid some of his administration's early missteps. — Michael F. Bishop

Publishers Weekly

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Donald delivers a highly readable portrait of Lincoln's closest friendships in a volume that nicely complements his preeminent biography of our 16th president. Donald's focus is on six key players: Joshua Speed, William H. Herndon, Orville H. Browning, William H. Seward and the president's private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. With regard to the young Springfield entrepreneur Speed, Donald astutely dismantles the so-called "evidence" for a homoerotic relationship, pointing out that during the four years Speed and Lincoln shared a room and a bed (then a common practice among budget-conscious young men) both were quite energetically involved in quests for wives. Interestingly, no less than three of the six friends delineated by Donald also became Lincoln's biographers. William H. Herndon-about whom Donald has previously written a book-started out as Lincoln's law partner in the fall of 1844 and wound up doing vital, sometimes scandalous, sometimes spurious research culminating in a seminal biography published in 1889. The work of Nicolay and Hay was primarily intended to refute much of Herndon's scandalous accounts regarding Lincoln's lineage, frontier romances and unhappy marriage. Perhaps the most complex and informative of Donald's portraits is that of Orville Browning, a longtime Springfield associate and fellow attorney who served briefly as senator from Illinois during Lincoln's first term and whom Lincoln passed over no less than three times when given the opportunity to nominate him to the Supreme Court. Friendship had its limits. Agent, John Taylor Williams. (Nov. 10) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

This short and tasty book casts new light on the country's enigmatic 16th president and introduces readers to the range and wealth of Lincoln scholarship, one of the great accomplishments of American historical studies. The central concept of the book — that Lincoln can be better understood by studying his friendships — is sound. Unfortunately, Donald tries to gussy things up with references to pedestrian "scientific" models of friendship and attempts to see whether Lincoln's friendships match the models — an enterprise of dubious value. Donald is at his best when he uses his formidable learning and sharp judgment to sift a century and a half of scholarship and memoir to give us new appreciation of Lincoln's character and achievement.

Library Journal