Lincoln's Citadel

[Kenneth Winkle]

Rob,

Thank you for posting a notice about my new book, Lincoln’s Citadel. It’s the follow-up to my previous book, The Young Eagle, which analyzed Lincoln’s early life and rise to the presidency within the context of the community he lived in, Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln’s Citadel does the same thing for Lincoln in Civil War Washington, DC. Washington was the most strategic city in the Union, because it was the capital, sat next to the eastern theater, was sandwiched between two slave states, and suffered a constant threat of attack throughout the war (including the direct attack at Fort Stevens in 1864). Presiding over the Union in Washington posed mammoth challenges for Lincoln that made a huge impact on how he viewed the war and conducted it, pursued emancipation as a war aim, and held the Union together. Security and loyalty were the first challenges he faced, and he developed a security system (suspension of habeas corpus, loyalty oaths, military arrests) that eventually spread across the entire North. Forty thousand fugitive slaves arrived in Washington during the war, which helped to reshape Lincoln’s attitudes toward slavery and emancipation throughout America. (Lincoln and Congress ended slavery in the District of Columbia eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation.) Washington treated hundreds of thousands of soldiers in over 100 military hospitals and achieved a revolution in wartime medical care. Living in Washington also made a big impact on Lincoln’s family life, including the death of his son Willie and the personal strain the presidency put on his marriage. The narrative analyzes Lincoln not just as president and commander-in-chief but as a mortal individual facing the same horrific challenges as everyone else living in a wartime city full of threats, dangers, and unforeseen personal challenges. The book puts a human face on Lincoln and on the community that he lived in as president. It’s a nice meaty 500 pages with a lot of details and anecdotes about Lincoln and his family and the remarkable achievements of the ordinary people who lived in Washington during the Civil War. It comes out on August 19.