Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer (English) Paperb

Description: Lincoln on the Verge by Ted Widmer Drawing on new research, Ted Widmer reveals President-Elect Abraham Lincoln as a work in progress, showing him on the verge of greatness. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description WINNER OF THE LINCOLN FORUM BOOK PRIZE "A Lincoln classic...superb." Author Biography Ted Widmer is Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College (CUNY). In addition to his teaching, he writes actively about American history in The New York Times , The New Yorker , The Washington Post , and other venues. He has also taught or directed research centers at Harvard University, Brown University, and Washington College. He grew up in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and attended Harvard University. Review Quote "With stunning verve and you-are-there immediacy, Ted Widmer evokes the thirteen day journey of president-elect Abraham Lincoln from Springfield to Washington in which he sealed a fervent bond with his northern followers. Loaded with high drama, danger, and plentiful suspense, the train rides take on an almost mythic dimension, representing the democratic revolution that will soon tip the fractious country into a bloody civil war. A riveting piece of history and a first-rate read." --Ron Chernow, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Grant and Washington: A Life "Ted Widmers Lincoln On the Verge is an impressively vivid and intimate portrait of Abraham Lincoln on his historic 1861 train journey from Illinois to Washington D.C. (where he was sworn-in as Americas 16th president). With a deft blend of textured storytelling and fresh research Widmer recounts the widespread uncertainty and fear that consumed the nation on the eve of the Civil War. Highly recommended!" --Douglas Brinkley, author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America "Lincolns journey by train from Springfield to Washington in February 1861 was full of drama and tension caused by a nation breaking in two as the president-elects passage through seven of the largest Northern states helped unify them for the impending struggle even a delegates from seven seceded states met a thousand miles to the south to form the Confederacy and conspirators in Baltimore plotted to assassinate Lincoln as he passed through their city, a conspiracy that was foiled by a secret midnight transit. Ted Widmers narrative captures the drama and tension with sparkling prose that projects the reader back in time to that fateful journey." --James M. McPherson, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era "A positively elegiac account of the most consequential pre-inauguration journey--and pre-presidential public relations offensive--in American history. Lincoln said at the outset that he had a "task greater than" George Washington faced to preserve the Union the founders had created. Ted Widmer has successfully undertaken a great task of his own in crafting a cohesive, dramatic, and ultimately stirring account of the politically fraught, emotionally draining, and physically dangerous voyage that brought Illinois favorite son to the nations capital in time, and shape, to meet his destiny." --Harold Holzer, winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize "A richly detailed and colorful narrative, Ted Widmers book is wonderfully readable, and surely the fullest account yet of Lincolns perilous trip to Washington as President-elect." --Douglas L. Wilson, author of Honors Voice and Lincolns Sword "Ted Widmer is one of our best contemporary chroniclers of the American story. He immerses readers in a pivotal moment at the brink of the Civil War, bringing our greatest president to life on the page. And as America now faces another moment of seemingly irreparable disunion, Widmer finds relevance -- and even reasons for hope -- in the past." --Adam Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening "In a wholly original, gorgeously crafted reimagining, Mr. Widmer portrays Lincolns demanding journey as a Homeric odyssey through perilous terrain toward almost preordained immortality....The story of Lincolns inaugural journey has never been told in such rich detail....Mr. Widmer brings off his panoramic, almost mystical interpretation with riveting panache. His book is not only a historical achievement but a literary one." --The Wall Street Journal "A book about a time of national crisis, in a time of national crisis." -- The Guardian "Lincoln buffs will undoubtedly devour the book. A colorful, richly detailed overture to Lincolns odyssey." -- Kirkus Reviews "Widmers exploration of this historical footnote delivers real depth... History buffs will be entertained and enlightened by this unique view of Lincoln and the country on the cusp of war." -- Publishers Weekly "At last count there were about 15,000 books on Lincoln, not all of them are worth reading. Lincoln on the Verge is." --CBS This Morning "Widmers Lincoln on the Verge is quite simply as good as it gets in the art of writing biography. Besides his thorough research and fast-paced storytelling skills, the authors deep insights into this tipping-point experience in Lincolns life as he traveled to meet his ultimate fate as president charged with the nation-on-his-shoulders responsibility of reuniting the states while acting as commander-in-chief during the most horrific war in American history makes for a saga to be savored." -- Washington Independent Review of Books "One of the most fascinating history books of the year thus far." --The Bowery Boys Podcast "A Lincoln classic...superb....So much has been written about Abraham Lincoln that its rare when a historian discovers an episode in his life that, if fully developed and interpreted, yields important new insights. Ted Widmer has done just that..." -- The Washington Post "Gripping...evocatively illustrated, and resonant with the kind of leaderly rhetoric and character that sustained the nation--and made it great." -- Harvard Magazine "Riveting. Enthralling. Rewarding. Take your pick! Ted Widmer has written a history book that jumps from the page." --Bookreporter.com Excerpt from Book 1. The Lightning 1 THE LIGHTNING he drilled through every plank and fitted them together, fixing it firm with pegs and fastenings. As wide as when a man who knows his trade Marks out the curving hull to build a ship... --Homer, The Odyssey , book 5, lines 246-2502 NOVEMBER 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was in the headquarters of the Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, on the north side of Springfields public square, when he received the news that he was likely to win New York, and with it, the presidency.3 It began with a sound--the click-clack of the telegraph key, springing to life as the information raced toward him. A reporter for the New-York Tribune heard the returns begin to "tap in," audibly, with the first "fragments of intelligence."4 Then, a flood, as more returns came in from around the country, bringing news as electric as the devices clattering around the room. All wires led to Springfield that evening, or so it felt to John Hay, who wrote that Lincolns room was "the ear of the nation and the hub of the solar system."5 As dispatchers danced around the suite, Lincoln sat languidly on a sofa, like a spider at the center of an enormous web. That word had already been used to describe the invisible strands connecting Americans through the telegraph.6 Every few minutes, the web twitched again, as an electromagnetic impulse, transmitted from a distant polling station, was transcribed onto a piece of thin paper, like an onion skin, and handed to him.7 Not long after ten, one of these scraps was rushed into his hands. The hastily scribbled message read, "The city of New York will more than meet your expectations."8 Immediately after, he crossed the square to meet his rapturous supporters, when he was handed another telegram, from Philadelphia. He read it aloud: "The city and state for Lincoln by a decisive majority." Then he added his all-important commentary: "I think that settles it." Bedlam ensued.9 Lincoln elected! It was the headline of the century, and Americans sent it all night long, tapping out the Morse code for Lincoln as quickly as possible: the single long dash, for L , beginning the word that would be repeated endlessly through American history from that night forward. It was already so familiar that many just compressed his name to a single letter, especially when paying to send a telegram. " L and H were elected," James A. Garfield noted into his diary, omitting needless letters (the H stood for Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Lincolns running mate). "God be praised!!" he wrote when he finally heard the news, wrested from the wires, in a rural Ohio telegraph station. The future president had driven his horse and carriage fifteen miles in the middle of the night, just to be connected.10 In newspaper offices, editors struggled to find type sizes big and bold enough to match the import of what they were hearing. Across the country, crowds stayed up late, hoping to glean new scraps of intelligence from the wires that thrummed with the sensational news. In New Haven, Connecticut, people flat-out screamed for a full ten minutes when the result was announced.11 In Port Huron, Michigan, a thirteen-year-old boy, Thomas Alva Edison, was so eager to get the news that he put his tongue on a wire to receive its electric impulse directly. In Galena, Illinois, young Republicans held a spontaneous "jollification" inside a leather shop, where they were served oysters by the owners son, Ulysses Grant. Despite the fact that he leaned toward Democrat Stephen Douglas, the younger Grant seemed "gratified."12 In Springfield, it seemed like the entire town was out in the streets, as a crowd described as "10,000 crazy people" descended upon the square, "shouting, throwing up their hats, slapping and kicking one another." The last stragglers went home around dawn, after yelling themselves hoarse.13 But the news did not go to sleep; it traveled all night along the wires that stretched across the oceanic expanse of the United States. The word telegraph derived from Greek, to connote "far writing," an accurate description of an American grid extending from the frigid wastes of northern Maine to tropical Florida. No one built them more quickly: not far from Troy, Kansas, an English traveler was astonished to see new lines racing across the prairie, six miles closer to the Pacific each day.14 Not everyone had welcomed the clunky overhead lines when they were first introduced; New York City had briefly refused, for fear that "the Lightning," as the telegraph was called, would attract real lightning.15 The wires were not always reliable in the early years; the news might vanish along the way, due to storms or atmospheric disturbances. A year earlier, at the end of August 1859, an intense solar flare known as the Carrington Event wreaked havoc on the grid, causing flames to shoot out, and machines to turn on and off, as if operated by witches. In a small Pennsylvania town--Gettysburg--a minister recorded his observation of "a mass of streamers," red and orange, streaking across the sky."16 In the years leading up to the election, the Lightning had become a part of the republics bloodstream. Readers thrilled to the "telegraphic intelligence" that filled newspaper columns, with hard information about stock prices, ship arrivals, and the movements of armies around the world. They also enjoyed news that was not quite news, describing royal birthdays in Europe or the arrival of visiting "celebrities"--to use a term that was coming into vogue to describe people who were known simply for being known.17 But even if the Lightning could race across great distances, it could not bring Americans closer together. Some worried that it was actually driving them apart. In 1858, three days after the first Atlantic Cable connected New York and London, the New York Times asked if the news would become "too fast for the truth?"18 Two years later, as Lincoln ran for the presidency, hateful innuendoes were streaking from one end of the country to another, accelerated by the Lightning.19 Many observed that the first word in the countrys name-- United --had become a glaring misnomer. Things got so bad that the Architect of the Capitol, Benjamin Brown French, began to put quotation marks around it.20 Every day, the news made one side or the other angry. In the North, law-abiding citizens were sickened by the never-ending degradation of African-Americans, as the Slave Power stretched its tentacles into the other sections.21 It was one thing to ignore slavery, as many Northerners were perfectly content to do. But when the federal government sent U.S. marshals into free states to find runaways, readers in the free states wondered what had happened to the moral purpose of the republic.22 Southern politicians never stopped asking for more : more slave states, more empire , to encircle the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. In their conclaves, they began to fantasize about a new kind of realm, modeled on the ancient Mediterranean, to be funded by the open plunder of Mexican silver and an inexhaustible supply of Africans.23 That did not sound much like the United States of America.24 But Southerners were no less wary of the news, particularly when they heard about John Browns bloody raid on Harpers Ferry or simply read the 1860 census returns that were already coming in. Since 1850, the population of just one state, Lincolns Illinois, had shot up more than the combined increase of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia. Who were all these people? Were they even American? Could these two versions of the same country be reconciled? No one would ever expect a thoughtful answer from the White House. It almost seemed as if Buchanans regime was leasing the countrys name, as his friends enriched themselves and presided over a machinery of government that was lubricated with bribery, brandy, and insider deals. In New York, a lawyer, George Templeton Strong, wrote in his diary that he felt like he was reliving "the Roman Empire in its day of rotting."25 Younger Americans, especially, felt estranged. A few years earlier, in Brooklyn, a carpenter had poured out his feelings of rage in a language quite unlike the curious poems he sometimes published at his own expense. Walt Whitman brimmed with anger as he wrote of the "crawling, serpentine men" who held office in Washington, "gaudy outside with gold chains made from the peoples money."26 The Capitol had turned into a hiding place for nocturnal creatures ("bats and night-dogs") and swamp-dwellers ("lobbyers, sponges"). Instead of reporting on corruption, the administrations pet journalists were "spani Details ISBN1476739447 Author Ted Widmer Short Title Lincoln on the Verge Pages 624 Publisher Simon & Schuster Language English ISBN-10 1476739447 ISBN-13 9781476739441 Format Paperback Subtitle Thirteen Days to Washington Audience General/Trade DEWEY 973.7092 Year 2021 Publication Date 2021-02-18 UK Release Date 2021-02-18 Imprint Simon & Schuster Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2021-02-18 NZ Release Date 2021-02-18 US Release Date 2021-02-18 Illustrations 140 b&w images thru-out; b&w map; stepback We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137703275;

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