Abraham Lincoln

Michael Burlingame is Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. He is the author or editor of several books about Lincoln, including Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks, published by Johns Hopkins, and The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln.

• Volume I. Author's Note1. "I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World": Childhood in Kentucky (1809–1816)2. "I Used to Be a Slave": Boyhood and Adolescence in Indiana (1816–1830)3. "Separated from His Father, He Studied English Grammar": New Salem (1831–1834)4. "A Napoleon of Astuteness and Political Finesse": Frontier Legislator (1834–1837)5. "We Must Fight the Devil with Fire": Slasher-Gaff Politico in Springfield (1837–1841)6. "It Would Just Kill Me to Marry Mary Todd": Courtship and Marriage (1840–1842)7. "I Have Got the Preacher by the Balls": Pursuing a Seat in Congress (1843–1847)8. "A Strong but Judicious Enemy to Slavery": Congressman Lincoln (1847–1849)9. "I Was Losing Interest in Politics and Went to the Practice of the Law with Greater Earnestness Than Ever Before": Midlife Crisis (1849–1854)10. "Aroused as He Had Never Been Before": Reentering Politics (1854–1855)11. "Unite with Us, and Help Us to Triumph": Building the Illinois Republican Party (1855–1857)12. "A House Divided": Lincoln vs. Douglas (1857–1858)13. "A David Greater than the Democratic Goliath": The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)14. "That Presidential Grub Gnaws Deep": Pursuing the Republican Nomination (1859–1860)15. "The Most Available Presidential Candidate for Unadulterated Republicans": The Chicago Convention (May 1860)16. "I Have Been Elected Mainly on the Cry 'Honest Old Abe' ": The Presidential Campaign (May–November 1860)17. "I Will Suffer Death Before I Will Consent to Any Concession or Compromise": President-elect in Springfield (1860–1861)18. "What If I Appoint Cameron, Whose Very Name Stinks in the Nostrils of the People for His Corruption?": Cabinet-Making in Springfield (1860–1861)NotesIndexVolume II.19. "The Man Does Not Live Who Is More Devoted to Peace Than I Am, But It May Be Necessary to Put the Foot Down Firmly": From Springfield to Washington (February 11–22, 1861)20. "I Am Now Going to Be Master": Inauguration (February 23–March 4, 1861)21. "A Man So Busy Letting Rooms in One End of His House, That He Can't Stop to Put Out the Fire That Is Burning in the Other": Distributing Patronage (March–April 1861)22. "You Can Have No Conf lict Without Being Yourselves the Aggressors": The Fort Sumter Crisis (March–April 1861) 23. "I Intend to Give Blows": The Hundred Days (April–July 1861)24. Sitzkrieg: The Phony War (August 1861–January 1862) 25 "This Damned Old House": The Lincoln Family in the Executive Mansion26. "I Expect to Maintain This Contest Until Successful, or Till I Die, or Am Conquered, or My Term Expires, or Congress or the Country Forsakes Me": From the Slough of Despond to the Gates of Richmond (January–July 1862)27. "The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery": Playing the Last Trump Card (January–July 1862) 28. "Would You Prosecute the War with Elder- Stalk Squirts, Charged with Rose Water?": The Soft War Turns Hard (July–September 1862)29. "I Am Not a Bold Man, But I Have the Knack of Sticking to My Promises!": The Emancipation Proclamation (September– December 1862)30. "Go Forward, and Give Us Victories": From the Mud March to Gettysburg (January–July 1863)31. "The Signs Look Better": Victory at the Polls and in the Field (July–November 1863)32. "I Hope to Stand Firm Enough to Not Go Backward, and Yet Not Go Forward Fast Enough to Wreck the Country's Cause": Reconstruction and Renomination (November 1863–June 1864) 33. "Hold On with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible": The Grand Offensive (May–August 1864)34. "The Wisest Radical of All": Reelection (September–November 1864) 35. "Let the Thing Be Pressed": Victory at Last (November 1864– April 1865) 36. "I Feel a Presentiment That I Shall Not Outlast the Rebellion. When It Is Over, My Work Will Be Done.": The Final Days (April 9–15, 1865) Acknowledgments Note on Sources Notes Index

This book supplants [Carl] Sandburg and supersedes all other biographies. Future Lincoln books cannot be written without it, and from no other book can a general reader learn so much about Abraham Lincoln. It is the essential title for the bicentennial. -- James L. Swanson Publishers Weekly 2008 A complete view of Lincoln's life... thorough. -- Diane Cole U.S. News & World Report 2008 A monumental boxed effort that weighs in at 10 pounds... The result is a picture of Lincoln from all sides, in a style that is relentless but not daunting. Bloomberg News 2008 A magisterial enterprise. -- William Safire New York Times 2009 If you aspire to Ultimate Lincoln Knowledge this is a must-read. Chicago Tribune 2009 These monumental volumes deserve a wide readership. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2009 Burlingame is a towering figure in Lincoln scholarship, and students of the 16th president have been waiting for this book for years. For all his learning-Burlingame may know more about Lincoln and his era than anyone in the world-his take on his subject is fresh, and he doesn't gloss over Lincoln's less appealing attributes. Abraham Lincoln comes as close to being the definitive biography as anything the world has seen in decades. Time.com An exhaustive and stylishly written biography. -- Greg Rienzi Gazette 2009 A stunning feat of research. -- Michael F. Bishop Publishers Weekly 2009 The two-volume set is being heralded as the ultimate new biography of Lincoln, an essential work to be used by all future biographers of the 16th president. -- Anne Byle Grand Rapids Press 2009 The granddaddy of all the recent books [on Lincoln] is Michael Burlingame's Abraham Lincoln: A Life... monumental in size, depth and scholarship, this is the new standard biography of our time and surpasses all other life portraits of our 16th president, and is the most important book of the bicentennial. -- James L. Swanson Washington Times 2009 No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame. -- Christopher Hitchens Atlantic Monthly 2009 The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth has generated a plethora of Lincoln-related items, but none impresses more than this two-volume biography... Essential. Choice 2009 The author knows more about Lincoln than any other living person. New York Review of Books 2009 Most thorough account of the development of Lincoln as a man and politician against the backdrop of America's struggle to mature as an idea and a nation... Not a Lincoln for our times, but the Lincoln of his times, and future biographers would do well to take note(s). Books and Culture: A Christian Review 2009 This magisterial work tells a rich, thoroughly documented, birth-to-death story of America's greatest president. Its bulk is formidable, but it holds countless rewards for undaunted readers. -- Jane Henderson St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2009 Burlingame very likely knows more about Lincoln than anyone who's ever lived, including Mary Todd, and his biography, 20 years in the writing, has a revelation on every page, dug out during the biographer's tireless research into musty libraries and forgotten attics that no one has ever thought to look in before. If there is anything knowable that you want to know about Lincoln, this is the place to find it. -- Andrew Ferguson American Spectator 2010