Lincoln's War Secretary

Walter Stahr, the New York Times bestselling author, has put together the story of Edwin Stanton, who served as Secretary of War in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. "This exhaustively researched, well-paced book should take its place as the new, standard biography of the ill-tempered man who helped to save the Union. It is fair, judicious, authoritative, and comprehensive," declares The Wall Street Journal.

Among the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814–1869) was the most powerful and controversial figure. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil War. He directed military movements and arrested thousands for "war crimes," such as resisting the draft or calling for an armistice. Stanton was so controversial that some even accused him of complicity in Lincoln's assassination. He was a stubborn genius who was both reviled and revered in his time.

Before the war, Stanton was a Democrat and a prominent trial lawyer. He opposed slavery, but only in private. Stanton briefly served as President Buchanan's Attorney General and then became Lincoln's aggressive Secretary of War. On the night of April 14, 1865, Stanton rushed to Lincoln's deathbed and took over the government, as Secretary of State William Seward had been critically wounded the same evening. Stanton informed the nation of the President's death, summoned General Grant to protect the Capitol, and started collecting evidence from those who had been with the Lincolns at the theater, in order to prepare a murder trial.

Now, Walter Stahr's "highly recommended" (Library Journal, starred review) essential book is the first major account of Stanton in fifty years, restoring this underexplored figure to his proper place in American history. "A lively, lucid, and opinionated history," declares Kirkus Reviews (starred review).

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