Book Review: Getting Right With Lincoln: Correcting Misconceptions About Our Greatest President and Lincoln Illuminated and Remembered

Book Review

Getting Right With Lincoln: Correcting Misconceptions About Our Greatest President by Edward Steers Jr.

Lincoln Illuminated and Remembered by William C. Harris

Review by Jason Emerson

There’s always something new to learn about Abraham Lincoln despite the abundance of books and articles about him. He remains a popular and top-selling subject because he is not only fascinating, but complex. While unique and unknown aspects of his life continue to be discovered, what is already known about this iconic American can still be further explored, reexamined, illuminated, and even rediscovered. Sometimes the best way to achieve this is to focus on singular aspects of his life through essays, or books of essays. Two recent books on Lincoln by William C. Harris and Edward Steers Jr. do exactly this by offering up collections of essays that dig deep into individual areas that are ripe for reconsideration.

In Lincoln Illuminated and Remembered (University Press of Kansas, 2023), Harris “seeks to fill in some of the gaps and misunderstandings in the story of Lincoln” by offering “fresh material” about Lincoln’s leadership and his handling of the slavery issue. Harris, an emeritus professor of history at North Carolina State University and the author of ten other books on Lincoln and the Civil War, is no stranger to peeling back the outer layers of our greatest president and exposing deeper issues. In fact, he’s examined the subjects of Lincoln’s leadership, the law of war, and maintaining a hold on the Border States in his previous books, particularly in the Lincoln Prize-winning Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (2011).

As with all of Harris’s books, Lincoln Illuminated and Remembered is erudite, well thought out, impressive, and offers a great deal for readers to think about. While his chapters on Lincoln’s leadership and his dealings with Confederate guerillas are interesting, the real gems are in chapters 2 and 3: “The Influence of the Mexican-American War on Lincoln” and “Compensated Emancipation: A Lincoln Plan to Abolish Slavery and End the Civil War.” Both topics are lesser-known aspects of Lincoln’s political career and are in need of fresh examination.

Lincoln’s experience as a congressman, specifically his opposition to the Mexican War, is an area ripe for further scholarship. Harris previously delved into this subject in his 2007 book, Lincoln’s Rise to the Presidency, but in his latest work he focuses more on the impact Lincoln’s time in Congress had on his actions as president over a decade later rather than a general overview of events in the late 1840s.

Lincoln’s single term in Congress is often viewed as a failure by historians, as it was by Lincoln’s contemporaries. The Illinois Whig did not distinguish himself in Washington as he’d planned. He opposed the Mexican War for being a blatant landgrab by President Polk that was not only immoral and illegal, but would further inflame the slavery issue in the United States. This opposition led Lincoln to be criticized, lampooned, and rejected by his own party. Not only did he fail to get renominated for his House seat, but his successor lost the next election, mainly because the constituency was so offended by Lincoln’s response to the war. But failures in life often bring the most meaningful learning opportunities, and such was the case for Lincoln.

As a member of Congress, Lincoln learned that a president must take responsibility for his actions and respect the majority sentiments of his constituents, that “in pursuing principle, public opinion could not be wisely ignored,” as Harris states. Lincoln learned that wars should not be fought for partisan or dubious reasons, and that, if the necessity for war arose, “the president should forthrightly explain the national interest or stakes in the conflict and also the war’s objectives.” Lincoln took this to heart throughout his presidency, never changing his message that he fought to preserve the Union; the destruction of slavery became a means to that end. Whenever others attempted to twist or pervert his stated purpose, Lincoln immediately corrected the record, such as in his August 1862 letter to Horace Greeley and even his last annual message to Congress in December 1864. As Harris states, “In his purpose and management of the war against secession, Lincoln sought to ensure that America would not suffer the disastrous consequences of another ill-advised war with its changing and unfortunate objectives.”

And yet, there was no denying that the Civil War began because of the slavery issue, and likewise, Lincoln made clear his opposition to the institution. But his actions regarding slavery are often misunderstood and misinterpreted even today. Some of his actions, in fact, remain relatively unknown. One such is Lincoln’s plan for compensated emancipation, which Harris characterizes as his “greatest surprise” in his years of studying the Great Emancipator. “Historians have not given due credit to Lincoln’s efforts to secure compensated emancipation as both a means to end the war and to secure emancipation,” Harris states. And in this impressive chapter, he shows exactly how Lincoln constantly tried (and failed) to do so.

Readers may be surprised to learn that Lincoln often argued that compensating slaveholders for their “property” (to the tune of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars) would require only about one-third of the cost of one year’s worth of war. (And by eliminating the cause of the war he would quickly bring the war to a close.) Of course, this idea failed in all ways except the tiny patch of Washington, D.C., where compensated emancipation actually occurred (the Border States rejected Lincoln’s offer), but Lincoln never gave up the hope, even as late as 1865, as Harris shows.

While this is an impressive book that is recommended for any Lincoln bookshelf, it can be criticized for its readability. Lincoln Illuminated and Remembered appears to be primarily aimed at other scholars. It is a work of erudition that should be read slowly and carefully, taken in pieces, and not rushed through. This is not necessarily a fault—it will certainly offer enlightening insights for Lincoln enthusiasts. But its likely intended audience should be taken into consideration by potential readers.

Those looking for a less academic but just as interesting book on the sixteenth president will find it in another collection of essays: Edward Steers Jr.’s latest work, Getting Right with Lincoln: Correcting Misconceptions About Our Greatest President (University Press of Kentucky, 2021). This book is the type of fun, accessible, eminently readable history that we need more of today. As Steers shows, to understand Lincoln is to understand not just the facts and expert interpretations of his life, but also the various errors and misconceptions written about his life. Was Lincoln killed by a cabal of rich northerners whose pockets Lincoln emptied? Did he really not want to free the slaves? Did he suffer from cancer, Marfan syndrome, or some other fatal disease that would have killed him anyway soon after John Wilkes Booth’s bullet did? These are some of the topics Steers covers.

Steers is a longtime Lincoln scholar best known for his landmark book, Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (2001). Getting Right with Lincoln can really be seen as a continuation of his previous book, Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President (2007), a collection of essays that seeks to separate fact from fiction in Lincoln’s life and legacy. As Steers asserts, “myth often replaces reality” in Lincolnland, sometimes through poor sourcing, sometimes through exaggeration to enliven the narrative, and sometimes through a writer’s biases or desire to revise history for personal or political reasons. This book is Steers’s reaction to what he calls “the wrong side of revisionist history”; it is his attempt to correct the fallacies that have somehow become canon.

There is a lot to unpack in this book, and a few of the best chapters are on Lincoln’s actions regarding the execution of 38 Dakota warriors in 1862, Lincoln’s role in the creation of the state of West Virginia, and Steers’s excellent summary of Lincoln’s physical health and all the potential illnesses writers have claimed for him through the years.

While Abraham Lincoln’s entire presidency focused on the Civil War, there were still other major events that occurred. One of those was the 1862 Dakota War in Minnesota, during which some six hundred white settlers, including women and children, were killed, kidnapped, or raped. The military was sent to restore order and ended up capturing 1,500 Dakotas. Almost 400 were tried before a military tribunal, most of whom were sentenced to death for acts of murder, rape, and robbery. Just as he did with so many courts-martial of Union soldiers during the war, Lincoln suspended the executions until he could personally review the trial transcripts and approve or reverse the findings. In the end, he approved only a fraction of executions for the Dakotas who committed the most heinous of crimes. And, as was typical in cases involving his justice and magnanimity, Lincoln received both praise and criticism. This is a fascinating incident in Lincoln’s presidency, as is his view of Native Americans in general and his plans to improve the country’s relations with all tribes once the Civil War ended (which, of course, Lincoln never got to bring to fruition).

Like his Indian policy, Lincoln’s role in supporting and allowing the pro-Union residents of Virginia to break away from the commonwealth and form their own state is another obscure aspect of Lincoln’s presidency. “The legality of the admission of West Virginia is still debated among historians and constitutional scholars, and the state is referred to as ‘Abraham Lincoln’s illegitimate child,’” as Steers states. Was the acceptance of the new state constitutionally legal or an act of usurpation by Lincoln? The U.S. Supreme Court had previously declared this sort of question a political one rather than a legal one, which should have made the decision easy. But, as Steers demonstrates, Lincoln still harbored concerns over the constitutionality of dismembering Virginia. Did the state’s secession from the Union allow a new government to be formed that superseded the old, or was the pro-Union government merely an interim expedient? In the end, Lincoln opted for statehood, believing it not only constitutional, but necessary to the war effort. “As with so many important issues decided during this turbulent period of history, might made right,” states Steers. This chapter is so unique in Lincolniana, and rightfully interesting, that many readers will undoubtedly flip to Steers’s bibliography and set out to learn more on their own.

For as enjoyable as this book is, it is disappointing to see that Steers recycled four chapters from Lincoln Legends for use in Getting Right with Lincoln: those on the character of Lincoln’s father, on the nature of Lincoln’s relationship with Ann Rutledge, on the fake Lincoln-Rutledge letters published in the 1920s, and on the authorship of the famous 1864 letter to the widow Lydia Bixby. Considering the vast number of Lincoln myths that circulate in the internet age, Steers surely could have examined other, new topics rather than resort to rehashing chapters from his most recent book. Indeed, readers who purchase his latest book may be frustrated to find that they already own half a book’s worth of the material. But of course, every new book gets new readers who have not read the previous work.

Minor criticisms aside, both Steers’s and Harris’s recent works are solid additions to the Lincoln bibliography and will give readers multiple insights and pieces of new and impressive information they did not know about their favorite president.

Jason Emerson is an independent historian and freelance writer who is the author or editor of seven books about Abraham Lincoln and his family, including Lincoln the Inventor (2009), The Madness of Mary Lincoln (2007), and Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln (2012).