Abraham Lincoln: A History (Volume 6)

This volume of the landmark 1890 biography is John Hay's intimate dispatch from inside Lincoln's White House during the crucible of 1862. The year began with Union armies stumbling through the swamps of the Peninsula Campaign and ended with the Emancipation Proclamation's first whisper. Hay, who sat inches from the president's desk daily, chronicles Lincoln's transformation: the exhaustion, the black humor that shocked visitors, the agonizing decision to make war against slavery as well as rebellion. This is history written from the keyhole. Hay reveals Lincoln not as monument but as a working president, arguing with cabinet members, mourning Union dead, watching generals fail, and slowly, inexorably, finding his way to emancipation. For anyone who wants the man behind the mythology, Volume 6 is where he comes alive.