Lincoln In 1864
Charles Bracelen Flood graduated from Harvard with ambitions to become a creative writer. After writing two early novels, he began to write history and biography. In recent years, Flood has turned his formidable writing skills to the American Civil War, writing a moving biography of the final years of Robert E. Lee and, in 2006, his "Grant and Sherman: the Friendship that Won the Civil War." Flood is an outstanding popular historian who uses his literary skills, interest in character, and ability to tell a story, to educate and to entertain.
Flood's latest book "1864:Lincoln at the Gates" begins slowly, but it soon gathers momentum as Flood ties together the threads of Lincoln's life and the progress of the Nation's life during the momentous year of 1864. In 1864, Lincoln stood for reelection to the presidency. The military aspect of the Civil War also came to a climax as Ulysses Grant became commander of the Union armies. Political and military affairs both took see-saw courses during 1864. Flood's book, with its novelistic skill in plots and sub-plots admirably ties together politics and military affairs together with much more about Lincoln's life and character.
The book shows Lincoln both as an idealist and as a consummately masterful politician. At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln's re-nomination was much in doubt. He was under attack from the radical wing of his party, including his Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, who wished a more aggressive prosecution of the war. Chase worked surreptitiously and feverishly to secure the presidential nomination for himself. Lincoln was also under attack from the various wings of the Democratic party, both those which supported the war effort and those which favored an immediate end to the conflict and a peace with the South. Flood shows how Lincoln used political muscle and acumen to secure the nomination and how Lincoln was involved in the fateful decision to give the vice-presidential nomination to Andrew Johnson. After securing the nomination, Lincoln, and most experts, believed up through August that Lincoln would likely lose the presidency to the Democratic candidate, General George McClellan. Military and political events late in the year worked to change the situation.
Flood's book does not include the detailed accounts of military movements that are found in many military studies of the conflict. His discussions of the Wilderness campaign, Cold Harbor, Grant's movement south to Petersburg, the Crater, Early's raid on Washington, Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman's capture of Atlanta and march to the Sea, and Thomas's victories at Franklin and Nashville are riveting, easy to follow, and compelling. More important, Flood places these military events in their political context and shows how they effected Lincoln's fortunes and the course of the 1864 election.
Flood also describes some of the other events that made 1864 a memorable year even apart from the Civil War, including the beginning of the transcontinental railroad, expansion of the telegraph, and a massive increase in immigration and industrialization. His portrayal of Lincoln suggests something of the complex inner workings of the man, including his troubled relationship with his wife Mary Todd. Flood offers a telling little scene of Lincoln playing with three stray cats on a visit to Grant near the end of the war. The book places great emphasis on Lincoln's meetings in his "shop" with common people seeking relief of various kinds from the vicissitudes of the conflict. Lincoln's meetings with Frederick Douglass are described as well as Lincoln's less well-known meeting with the abolitionist and feminist leader, Sojourner Truth. Lincoln's failings are shown as well. For example, there are some details in this book about Lincoln's involvement in black-market trade in cotton during the course of the war. The picture that emerges is that of a highly gifted, driven, but very human leader.
In this year of the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth and of national transition, there have already been many books encouraging reflection about Lincoln. For readers with a good basic overview of Lincoln and of the Civil War, this study by Charles Bracelen Flood will be an excellent choice.
Robin Friedman
