Book Notes

BOOK NOTES Twenty Days. By Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt , Jr. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Pp. vii, 312. $11.95.) Abraham Lincoln has been the subject of more printed works than any other American. Authors of late, desperately seeking something new to say, have produced books on such topics as Lincoln's favorite poetry and his preferred culinary dishes. The net result has been a general degradation of the image of this remarkable man. But this book, all by itself , will restore much of the luster that rightfully belongs to Lincoln's memory. Mrs. Kunhardt has not merely—with a meticulousness akin to reverence—recounted the events of Lincoln's assassination and the score of days and nights that followed. She has ako utilized hundreds of revealing photographs from the incomparable collection of her father, Frederick Hill Meserve. (The illustrations alone are worth the price of the book.) With a skillful blending of words and pictures Mrs. Kunhardt dramatically recreates the murder of Lincoln, the grief of the long journey back to Springfield, the trial and execution of the conspirators, and the final funeral services for the sixteenth President. Not since the 1952 publication of Benjamin P. Thomas' one-volume biography has a work on Lincoln of such quality and value come forward. Small wonder that a condensation of this study appeared last spring in an issue of Life magazine. When Lincoln Died. By Ralph Borreson. (New York: AppletonCentury Company, 1965. Pp. 231. $8.95.) Album of the Lincoln Murder. By Robert H. Fowler. (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1965. Pp. 64. $2.95.) These two works suffer the fatal shortcoming of being published at the same time as Dorothy Kunhardt's Twenty Days (see above). If the Borreson book had appeared at any other time, its reception might have been warmer. But released within weeks of Mrs. Kunhardt's study, its shallowness is glaringly apparent. The Fowler compilation is a hardcover edition of the July, 1965, issue of Civil War Times Illustrated. Its contents slam-span no more than two chapters of the Kunhardt study. Borreson 's study summarizes—in text and pictures—the basic facts and little more. The reader who wishes a popular and fast-reading version of the Lincoln assassination will find the Fowler work economical and of interest . Neither work, however, is in the class of the more definitive Twenty Days. 95 96CIVIL WARHISTORY Wisconsins Civil War Archives. By William G. Paul. (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1965. Pp. vi, 66. $1.00. ) This useful bibliography lists 171 collections of manuscript material pertaining to Wisconsin's part in the Civil War. The collections are grouped under ten categories, including Executive, Adjutant General, Quartermaster General, County and Local Records, and Federal War Records. A rather full annotation describes the contents of each collection. The items listed vary from records of soldiers' parents drawing extra pay from the Volunteer Aid Fund to a three-volume index to all Wisconsin volunteers. This compilation may be slim and inexpensive, but it will be indispensable for any future research into the Badger State's wartime history. 13 Desperate Days. By John Mason Potter. (New York: Ivan Oblensky , Inc., 1964. Pp. xxiv, 200. $4.50.) Nonprofessional historians have always dominated the field of Lincolniana , especially in recent years. This study is a typical, and at times painful, example of such contributions to Lincoln literature. It treats of the alleged attempt, in February, 1861, to assassinate the President-elect as he passed through Baltimore, and of the successful counter-actions by chief of detectives Allan Pinkerton in getting Lincoln safely to Washington . Pinkerton is the hero of the story, with Ward Hill Lamon emerging as the principal villain insofar as the legend of the assassination attempt is concerned. Yet Potter's trappings hamper most of the story. A journalistic approach, use of the present tense and constructed conversation, lack of annotation and index, and cursory bibliography will likely make the whole presentation suspect to the meticulous student. Undoubtedly the author, director of Cornell University's news bureau, undertook this work as a labor of love. But infatuation seldom produces good history. The Shenandoah Valley in 1864: An Episode in the...