William Seward and Walter Stahr – Double Signed

William Henry Seward was Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State. Everyone knows that. Seward also bought Alaska (aka, “Seward’s Folly”). Many people know that. But Seward also was one of Lincoln’s biggest rivals, then became one of his closest friends. And as author Walter Stahr reminds us, Seward was Lincoln’s Indispensable Man.

The latter is the subtitle to Stahr’s biography called, simply, Seward. Stahr traces Seward’s rise as “progressive governor of New York, outspoken federal senator, odds-on favorite to win the 1860 Republican nomination, secretary of state during the Civil War and its aftermath, Lincoln’s closest friend and adviser, target of the assassins who killed Lincoln, purchaser of Alaska, early architect of America’s empire.”

If that sounds like a lot, it is. Arguably Lincoln might have lost the nation before he even started his presidency if Seward hadn’t been enlisted to help glue together a country that was in the process of tearing itself apart. Luckily for the country, William Seward was there. And luckily for me, Walter Stahr was the guest speaker at our monthly Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia dinner.

Walter Stahr at Lincoln Group of DC

I had a chance to talk briefly with Stahr prior to his talk. He clearly knows his stuff. He spent about five years researching Seward for the book, just as he had for his previous book about founding father John Jay. Speaking to a roomful of Lincoln scholars (who know a thing or two about William Seward), Stahr provided us with some fascinating insights that made many of us want to learn more. We all gained immensely from his knowledge.

I also gained a bit of a red face. I had brought my copy of Seward to have Stahr autograph it, which he gladly proceeded to do. Only to find that he already had. Ugh. It was then that I realized I had ordered the book directly from the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago. The ALBS has a fantastic feature in which you can order online and then watch the author sign the book for you via live-streamed video. He signed it specifically to me at the time. Ah, but as you can see in the photo below, Stahr graciously covered my embarrassment by signing the book again, in person. 🙂

Seward by Walter Stahr

In the end I got a two-fer. A fantastic lecture by a distinguished author and scholar, and a double-signed book to add to my collection. Not a bad deal at all.

More about Walter Stahr. View his talk at the 2013 Library of Congress Book Festival.

More about the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia.

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His next book is on Abraham Lincoln, due out in 2017.

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[Daily Post]

We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends by David Herbert Donald (A Book Review)

Abraham LincolnSteven Spielberg’s Lincoln is based in part on the marvelous book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which explores Abraham Lincoln’s relationships with his political rivals. But another author explores the relationships Lincoln had with male friends, some of whom were his rivals and some of whom were intimate companions. David Herbert Donald, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the book Lincoln, for which he won the Lincoln Prize and had a long run on the New York Times bestseller list.  With We Are Lincoln Men Donald takes us through the rather short list of people that Abraham Lincoln could have considered to be friends.  Somewhat surprisingly given his amicability and story telling powers, Lincoln did not have many close friendships in his life.  Donald brings us into the ones he had.

He begins with a review of Lincoln’s upbringing, one which really didn’t see him build any real long lasting friendships.   Donald then spends some time parsing the one man with whom Lincoln probably had his most intense friendship, Joshua F. Speed.  Some have suggested that the Lincoln/Speed friendship was more than just friends, but Donald dispels this notion and puts us within the context of the times.  Lincoln’s long law partnership with William H. Herndon – whom he called Billy – is well documented by Donald, as was Lincoln’s friendship with Illinois Senator Orville Browning.  Browning became Lincoln’s confidant, and eventually his strongest supporter in Congress.  Even here, however, the friendship could not withstand differences in the two men’s views of Emancipation and eventually they drifted apart to the point where Lincoln thrice passed over Browning for Supreme Court Justice.

The best chapter is probably the one on Lincoln’s friendship with William H. Seward.  Initially competitors – Seward was expected to get the nomination for President that Lincoln ended up winning – the two men developed into a formidable team whose mutual respect led to an intense friendship on which each depended on the other.  Seward himself is a interesting case study, and I look forward to receiving my signed copy of Walter Stahr‘s new biography of him soon.  The final chapter examines Lincoln’s relationship with his two young private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay.  These two began with simple devotion to the president, and grew into his most ardent supporters and to some extent confidants, before becoming in the end his official biographers.

Donald does great justice to the complex interactions Lincoln had with these men.  Lincoln was not a particularly open man, and friendships came to him with difficulty. In some cases his reserve and his policies led to discord, but in all cases there was respect.  And perhaps respectfulness is a better word than friendship to describe how Lincoln interacted with those he called “friends.”  This book is an easy and a welcome read.

More about Abraham Lincoln.

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