Abraham Lincoln (review)

BOOK REVIEWS89 Lincoln by doubtful attribution and amazing inference is seen shaping his course by drawing upon incidents of his boyhood. His perference for gradualism in extinguishing slavery is explained as the outcome of watching the slow erosion of the banks of the Ohio River and Pigeon Creek while he was a boy! At best, the author may be given good marks for effort and enthusiasm. At best, the publisher may be given good marks for producing a book relatively free from typographical errors. Beyond these charitable observations a conscientious reviewer may not go. James A. Rawley University of Nebraska Abraham Lincoln. By D. W. Brogan. (New York: Schocken Books, 1963. Pp. xvii, 143. $3.50 cloth; $1.45 paper.) D. W. Brogan has built an enviable reputation interpreting America for the British; his Abraham Lincoln was an early attempt in that direction. It has now been reissued with an apologetic introduction and a "do-it-yourself kit" bibliography of ten tides to bring it up to date. The author's introduction sketches some changes that three decades of intensive research by historians demand. For example, Brogan would revise downward his high opinion of Stephen A. Douglas and George B. McClellan and revise upward his low opinion of Mary Lincoln. Yet he has not been wholly convinced by recent trends in historiography. He still regards Mary Lincoln as "much less than an ideal wife" and Ulysses S. Grant as a great writer but not a great soldier. These are mere suggestions in the introduction , however; the reader must revise for himself. This Lincoln biography is extremely well written, with well-turned phrases, comparisons with the British scene (Darwin, Jane Welsh, and the Asquith government), and flashes of insight, particularly into politics. But Brogan's present-mindedness has made his book a period piece, obviously dated by the World War I spectacles through which he peers at Lincoln and the Civil War. His then fashionable belief in a repressible conflict and his esteem for Douglas reflect the disenchantment of the lost generation. World War I, however, is most obtrusive when Brogan assesses McClellan and Grant. Remembering foolish assaults at Passchendaele , Morhange, and Verdun, Brogan thinks McClellan's caution showed "a prescience as to the effect of modern weapons that is now more creditable than it then seemed." Brogan therefore contrasts unfavorably Grant's bloody attacks in the Wilderness with McClellan's Peninsular campaign. For this generation, much more familiar with battles of the Civil War then those of World War I, viewing the Wilderness by way of Verdun blurs rather than sharpens the vision. Despite Brogan's esteem for Douglas and McClellan, Lincoln remains the hero. Even while believing Lincoln could have avoided war by allowing the extension of slavery, Brogan does not condemn him for rejecting 90CI VIL W A R HISTORY concession. Though not an abolitionist, Lincoln thought slavery wrong; to expand its territory denied the Declaration of Independence and threatened all free men. Lincoln remained true to this principle, embraced war, and incidentally saved his party. As the war progressed Lincoln's greatness became apparent. More than anyone else, he saved the Union; his political genius preserved "unity of spirit in the North." Above all, Brogan praises Lincoln's magnanimity to the vanquished and laments his death as the most untimely in history. Thirty years ago this book deserved an enthusiastic review, but this is not 1935. In reissuing it without a revision, not only do minor factual errors remain but interpretations which Brogan now rejects stand side by side with his admirable insights into the political dimension of the Civil War. Ari Hoogenboom Pennsylvania State University The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance. Volume I, 1843-1862. Edited by Frontis W. Johnston. (Raleigh: State Department of Archives and History, 1963. Pp. Ixxiv, 475. $5.00.) The first volume of The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance contains a total of 338 letters, 250 to Vance, eighty-eight from him, and ten miscellaneous documents. These papers and those to follow, all previously available to scholars, will thus one day be within easy reach of persons interested in the Civil War. The papers in this volume were written during the years...