The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon

Front Cover
Gabor Boritt
Oxford University Press, Feb 8, 2001 - History - 352 pages
In The Lincoln Enigma, Gabor Boritt invites renowned Lincoln scholars, and rising new voices, to take a look at much-debated aspects of Lincoln's life--including his possible gay relationships, his plan to send blacks back to Africa, and his high-handed treatment of the Constitution. Boritt explores Lincoln's proposals that looked to a lily-white America. Jean Baker marvels at Lincoln's loves and marriage. David Herbert Donald compares Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as Commanders-in-Chief. Douglas Wilson shows us the young Lincoln--not the strong leader of popular history, but a man who struggles to find his purpose. Gerald Prokopowicz searches for the military leader, William C. Harris for the peacemaker, and Robert Bruce meditates on Lincoln and death. In a final section Boritt and Harold Holzer offer a fascinating portfolio of Lincoln images in modern art. Acute and thought-provoking in their observations, this all-star cast of historians--including two Pulitzer and three Lincoln Prize winners--questions our assumptions of Lincoln, and provides a new vitality to our ongoing reflections on his life and legacy.

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Contents

1 Did He Dream of a LilyWhite America? The Voyage to Linconia
1
2 Young Man Lincoln
20
A Marriage
36
4 Military Fantasies
56
5 Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as Commanders in Chief
72
The Constitution and Liberty
86
7 Toward Appomattox Toward Unconditional Surrender?
108
8 The Riddle of Death
130
Lincoln in Modern Art
146
Notes
278
A Bibliography
300
Contributors
319
Index
321
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

Gabor S. Boritt is Robert C. Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies and Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. His books include Why the Civil War Came and The Gettysburg Nobody Knows.

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