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68CIVIL WAR history gerous, self-defeating colonialism of the Spanish-American War in favor of a "rational" Open Door approach to American expansion abroad. If White's orthodox liberalism failed him as a viable economic theory in the Gilded Age, his instincts as a businessman served him well during the infant years of the American empire. "Some historians have felt that the Anti-Imperialists lost their battle," Logsdon writes of this period. "Horace White would not agree." Lake Forest College John G. Sproat A Rose for Mrs. Lincoln: A Biography of Mary Todd Lincoln. By Dawn Langley Simmons. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970. Pp. x, 197. $8.50.) There are a number of sordid chapters in American history which should be admitted in careful and dispassionate historical studies. One such reappraisal, which needs continued emphasis, is an honest portrait of the "only woman Abraham Lincoln ever loved," Mary Todd. The late Ruth Painter Randall made a magnificent start with her comprehensive Mary Lincoln: A Biography of a Marriage (1953). Irving Stone also drew a sympathetic portrait of Mrs. Lincoln in his novel, Love Is Eternal (1954). In A Rose for Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Simmons makes a short but kindly disposed contribution to righting the image of a woman "to whom the people of this country owe a great reparation," as one of Mary Lincoln's contemporaries, the writer Jane Grey Swisshelm, claimed. For some unexplained reason, Mrs. Simmons points out, the press of her day was "out to get" Mrs. Lincoln. Some of this might have been of her own doing, for William Stoddard, one of the White House secretaries , thought Mary Lincoln was not "worldly wise," otherwise she would have included reporters in her group when she went to visit the soldiers in the hospitals. This could very well be the key to the why of Mrs. Lincoln's "bad image" as a First Lady. Perhaps this also explains why the press took particular pleasure in needling her, no matter what she did. When she held receptions in the White House she was accused of being callously indifferent to the suffering of the men in the field. After her son, Willie, had died she prohibited flowers inside the White House "because Willie had loved them." She also banned the Marine Band concerts "because she could no longer bear happy music." The press chorused that "mothers across the nation were losing sons in battle so why was her grief any different from theirs?" But of all the carping critics who hounded Mrs. Lincoln none quite matched the thoroughness of the man who professed to be Lincoln's "closest friend," William Herndon. Lincoln's junior law partner devoted years to "documenting" his intense dislike for Mrs. Lincoln and biographers and writers ever since have used him as their first source. Simon BOOK REVIEWS69 Cameron, Lincoln's first Secretary of War, said Mrs. Lincoln was "the victim of slander." Dr. Milton H. Shutes, author of Liiwolris Emotional Life, once wrote that "Mary Todd was good for Abraham Lincoln." In her slim volume Mrs. Simmons agrees with both. Arnold Gates Garden City, New York The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina. By George C. Rogers, Jr. (Charleston: University of South Carolina Press, 1970. Pp. xvi, 565. $12.50.) All too often the writing of local history has been left to amateurs— who usually either compile useless data or spend much time in tracing family trees. This splendid volume by Professor Rogers, who teaches at the University of South Carolina, is a happy exception to the generalization . Recognizing that local history can reveal much about a people, thencustoms , habits and mores, Mr. Rogers proceeded with skill and scholarship to tell the story of Georgetown County from its beginnings to the present. And it is a story well worth telling. For Georgetown County— which in its heyday has been termed by some as perhaps the most aristocratic region in the nation—was a section where the myth and legend of the Old South actually existed. The society consisted mainly of a relatively few rich planters, living in plantation splendor, and drawing their wealth mainly from rice produced by thousands of Negro slaves. In 1840, for example...

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