Numbers in roman type refer to illustrations in the inserts; numbers in italics refer to book pages.
Chicago Historical Society.
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum.
Courtesy of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library.
Seward House, Auburn, New York.
From the collection of Louise Taper.
Ohio Historical Society.
The Saint Louis Art Museum.
Library of Congress: front endpapers, back endpapers.
Missouri Historical Society.
Picture History.
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.
Brown University Library.
United States Army Military History Institute.
National Archives.
Courtesy of J. Wayne Lee.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, New York.
Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.
Civil War Collection, Eastern Kentucky University Archives, Richmond, Kentucky.
White House Historical Association (White House Collection).
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time. She is also the author of the bestselling Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with her husband, Richard Goodwin.
Abraham Lincoln photographed at age forty-eight in Chicago on February 28, 1857. The lawyer’s political star had begun to rise at last. A year later, accepting his party’s nomination for U.S. senator, he would utter the famous words “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Mary Todd Lincoln, shown here at twenty-eight, after four years of marriage. Upon their first meeting, Lincoln told Mary: “I want to dance with you in the worst way.” And, Mary laughingly told her cousin later that night, “he certainly did.”
The Lincolns were indulgent parents, believing that “love is the chain whereby to lock a child to its parent.” Robert was the eldest (3), followed by Willie (4) and Tad (5). Another son, Eddie, died of tuberculosis in 1850 at the age of three.
When William H. Seward, shown here at age forty-three (6), married Frances Miller (7), the daughter of a wealthy judge, in 1824, he acquired wealth, professional connections, and the stately mansion in Auburn, New York (8), that would become his lifelong home.
Possessed of a powerful intellect and strong moral convictions, Frances Seward (9) served as her husband’s political conscience. Young Fanny Seward, shown with her father, adored her mother but idolized her father, thinking him one of the greatest men in the country.
“A vale of misery” descended upon Salmon P. Chase (11 and 13) after he lost three wives, including Catherine (12) and Sarah Bella (13), in slightly over a decade.
Chase thereafter sought companionship with political friends such as Edwin M. Stanton (14), whose own life had been marred by family tragedy. Only when he became governor of Ohio did Chase settle into a home of his own in Columbus (15).
Julia Bates (16 and 18) provided Edward Bates (17) with what their friends uniformly described as an ideal home life. Through four decades of married life and the birth of seventeen children their intimacy remained strong.
In the 1850s, Northern sentiment was inflamed by the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with its disturbing scenes of slavery’s violence (19), and by the landmark Dred Scott decision. Scott (20) had sued for his freedom, but the Supreme Court, led by Roger B. Taney (21), decreed that he “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Lincoln’s gift for making and keeping friends, such as Joshua Speed (22) and David Davis (23), played a critical role in both his personal happiness and professional advancement.
Lincoln forged lasting friendships while riding the “circuit” with fellow lawyers, including William Herndon (24) and Ward Lamon (25). In these convivial settings (26), Lincoln’s never-ending stream of stories made him the center of attention, while he, in turn, gained firsthand knowledge of the voters throughout Illinois.
Neither Lyman Trumbull (27) nor Norman Judd (28) would ever forget Lincoln’s magnanimity when conceding defeat in his 1855 bid for the Senate. Both men would help Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago (29).
Thurlow Weed (31) failed to win the Republican nomination for his protégé, William Seward. An act of betrayal by Horace Greeley (30), who bore an old political grudge against Seward, contributed to the defeat. Editorial humor of the day cast Seward in the role of an assassinated Julius Caesar and depicted Greeley as a vengeful Brutus (32).
“A profound stillness fell upon the Wigwam” (33) as the results of the crucial third ballot hung in the balance. Seward awaited the news from Chicago in the garden of his Auburn home (34).
Residents of Springfield congregated before Lincoln’s home for a campaign rally after his unexpected capture of the Republican nomination over Seward, Chase, and Bates.
Assassination threats prompted President-elect Lincoln to enter Washington at the crack of dawn. A scurrilous rumor that he had disguised himself in a Scotch plaid cap and military cloak circulated widely in the media, causing him much embarrassment.
President Abraham Lincoln, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1862.
Lincoln’s office in the White House (38) doubled as the cabinet’s meeting room. Late at night, he liked to relax and share stories with his two secretaries, John Nicolay (39) and John Hay (40), who became almost like sons to him.
Seventy-five-year-old General Winfield Scott (42), veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, commanded the U.S. Army when Lincoln took office. Shown here with the cabinet (41), Scott suffered from a variety of ailments that limited his active role in military planning.
Even during the Civil War, ordinary people had nearly unlimited access to the White House. Volunteer troops bivouacked in the East Room in May 1861 (43), while large public receptions (44) attracted a “living tide of humanity” who poured in to shake hands with the president and first lady.
In February 1862, while Mary Lincoln (45) hosted a triumphant reception downstairs, her twelve-year-old son, Willie, lay dying upstairs. After Mary fell into a depression (46), Lincoln was left to care for their youngest son, Tad (47), who was equally devastated by Willie’s death.
When Seward became secretary of state (48), he installed his son Fred as his second in command (49) and settled his close-knit family, including Augustus (50), Fred (left), Fanny (right), and Fred’s wife, Anna (foreground), into an elegant mansion on Lafayette Square.
Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase (51) craved the presidency with every fiber of his being, an ambition shared by his beautiful daughter Kate (53 left, and seated, right). Rumors circulated that her 1863 marriage to William Sprague (52) “was a coldly calculated plan to secure the Sprague millions” to finance her father’s 1864 campaign.
When his first war secretary, Simon Cameron (54), resigned under fire, Lincoln called on Edwin M. Stanton (55), who overcame his initial contempt for the president to embrace a deep friendship. The Lincoln and Stanton families spent their summers together at the Soldiers’ Home (56).
Francis P. Blair and his wife, Eliza (59), presided over a political dynasty that included their sons, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair (61) and Union general Frank (60). Daughter Elizabeth’s (58) voluminous letters to her husband, Captain Samuel P. Lee (57), left a vivid record of life in Washington during the Civil War.
In addition to their cabinet duties, both Navy Secretary Gideon Welles (62) and Attorney General Edward Bates (63) kept detailed diaries that recorded the inner workings of the Lincoln administration.
In letters to his wife, Mary Ellen (64), General George B. McClellan regularly derided Lincoln, his cabinet, and most of the hierarchy in the Union army, while crediting himself with every success. Admirers hailed him as a young Napoleon (65).
Lincoln went through a succession of generals, including Ambrose E. Burnside (68) and Joseph Hooker (69), before he found a winning team in Ulysses S. Grant (66) and William T. Sherman (67).
Antislavery leader Frederick Douglass (70) and Senator Charles Sumner (71) urged Lincoln to bring blacks into the Union army. Ultimately, almost two hundred thousand black men served, including this young soldier (72).
Lincoln took more than a dozen trips to the front, both to consult with his generals and to inspire the troops (73). Scenes of the dead littered on the battlefield (74) tore at his heart.
Lincoln and his son Tad walked through the Confederate capital of Richmond on April 4, 1865. Freed slaves crowded the streets, shouting, “Glory! Hallelujah!” when Lincoln came into view.
As Lincoln lay dying in the Petersen boardinghouse, he was surrounded by family, members of his cabinet, congressmen, senators, and military officials. When Lincoln died at 7:22 A.M. on April 15, 1865, Stanton proclaimed: “Now he belongs to the ages.”