Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography

By William E. Gienapp

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, History

William E. Gienapp's 2002 biography sets out to tell Abraham Lincoln's whole life in a short, readable volume grounded in modern scholarship. It moves briskly through his frontier boyhood, law practice and political rise in Illinois and gives most of its pages to the presidency. Gienapp treats Lincoln's political and military leadership together: his handling of party factions and public opinion, the road to emancipation, and his growth as commander in chief, from his trials with McClellan to his partnership with Grant and Sherman.

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