Digging Up the Details of Lincoln's Life

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter to Albert G. Hodges, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Lincoln was often extremely modest, but this remark was the result of more than humility. Lincoln, particularly as the Civil War stretched into its fourth year, was painfully aware of how much was beyond his control. David Herbert Donald in his biography Lincoln carefully examines the life of Abraham Lincoln from his birth in rural Kentucky through his death at the age of 56.

In the preface to Lincoln, Donald, Harvard's Charles Warren Professor Emeritus of American history and American civilization, describes a meeting he had with President John F. Kennedy '40. The year was 1962, and Donald had just delivered a talk on Abraham Lincoln in the White House. Donald recalls that President Kennedy, "thinking no doubt of how his own administration would look in the backward glance of history," told him that "No one has a right to grade a President -- who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk and learned why he made his decisions."

These words made a lasting impression of Donald. In his biography of Lincoln, Donald recreates the events of Lincoln's life using Lincoln's own letters and papers, including newly discovered records of Lincoln's legal practice. Donald also quotes Lincoln extensively from letters and articles written by people who saw and talked with Lincoln. The Lincoln that emerges from Donald's careful reconstruction is a charismatic, clever, hard working and always pragmatic leader.

Certainly none of Donald's readers will be surprised by Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election, the outbreak of civil war or by the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. The facts of Lincoln's life have been drummed into us from grammar school onwards. What may surprise the reader is Lincoln's active sense of humor, physical strength and youthful spirit and vigor.

Donald cites many examples of Lincoln's reliance on humor to get a point across and to diffuse a difficult or awkward situation. Donald describes how Lincoln used an anecdote to convey his wish that Jefferson Davis and other high-ranking leaders of the Confederacy be allowed to flee the country. He could not state this openly. As president he would be obligated to hunt down and execute the traitors, but as a man believing in "malice towards none, charity for all," he just wished they would disappear. Lincoln told Sherman a story "about a man who declined a drink because he had taken a total-abstinence pledge and asked for lemonade instead. When a friend suggested that it would taste better with a little brandy in it, the man said he would not object if it could be added 'unbeknown' to him."

Donald's biography is at its best when recounting details like this. His style is factual and largely objective. As he states, his intention is to "explain rather than to judge." Donald's style disappoints only at the most significant and emotional points in Lincoln's life. For example, when Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg address, Donald does not reprint the speech, even though it is only 272 words long.

Donald's scholarship is excellent; hardly a paragraph is without a quote from Lincoln or a contemporary of Lincoln's who dealt closely with him. However Donald's emphasis on documentation makes it difficult for the reader to forget, even momentarily, that this a historical biography. The reader never feels really inside the President's world and sharing what the president experiences.

Donald is an excellent historian and writer, not to mention the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for biography. Fortunately, Lincoln's life is interesting enough that even when retold in Donald's careful, dry and factual way it holds the reader's attention for all 600 pages. Lincoln is an excellent, extremely informative biography that has deservedly been hailed as the best in a generation and among the best of all time.