Young Abe Lincoln, shooting up like a cornstalk on the Indiana prairie, faced a gloomy future. His father did not approve of school or of the books he walked forty miles to borrow. There seemed no way to get an education there in the wilderness, and though he loved to hang around the country courts listening to lawyers talk, there was scant chance that he would ever practice law. Folks said he was all right as a railsplitter or postmaster but he wouldn't go far . . .

The gawky boy in his outgrown clothes studied law in Springfield, was elected to Congress where he aroused terrific controversy when he voted against participation in the Mexican War, and for bills restricting slavery. He stumped the midwest debating the slave issue with his brilliant campaign rival, Stephen A. Douglas, who defeated him in the senatorial re-election. But in 1860, in the brewing storm of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln became President of the United States.

In his own time he made many enemies over the issue of slavery and was vilified by north and south alike. Hating war, he was blamed for every battle. The immortal Gettysburg Address was called "silly" and "absurd" and a hostile press attacked it as a "flat failure".

Lincoln's failures were few, and human. He could not marry gentle Ann Rutledge because she was engaged to another man and her death cut off his dearest hope. He failed to show up at the church to marry fascinating Mary Todd and when the ceremony finally took place people wondered how he bore her selfishness and shrewishness. What wars he fought within himself were silent, lonely ones, overshadowed by the fierce storm of Civil War.

His tragic death stunned friends and enemies alike. His judgement in the conduct of civil and military administration may have been far from unerring, but the abolition of slavery alone was enough to assure Lincoln's immortality in the American democratic tradition. His famous Gettysburg Address remains imperishable among the world's greatest declarations of faith and understanding.

Jeannette Nolan has written a magnificent of a man and an era that will be welcomed by readers for its sincerity and its quiet charm.

From the dust jacket