Who needs another Lincoln biography? We do — and here's why.

[David Lockmiller]

Who needs another Lincoln biography?

I think that the best answer to this question is the Lincoln Prize. As long as there are excellent books written on Lincoln's life, or even small parts of his life, there will be the Lincoln Prize. When they stop giving out this prize on an annual basis, then I would conclude that we don't need another Lincoln biography.

We have had an extensive discussion here with the author James B. Conroy – Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865. This book was a finalist in 2015. And, in 2017, Mr. James B. Conroy was a co-winner of the first place prize for his book Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime.

Lincoln's biographical story is so voluminous that it took two volumes for Michael Burlingame, to win the first place prize in 2010 for his book(s) Abraham Lincoln: A Life.

And James B. Conroy almost won first place for a book that centered on only one day in Lincoln's life. But it was a very important day for the nation.

I was wondering this morning whether or not anyone had written a book on the day that President Lincoln, General Grant, General Sherman, and Admiral Porter met in March, 1865 on the River Queen to discuss the end of the American Civil War. It was the subject of Healy's painting, The Peacemakers. President Lincoln's image was extracted from that painting by Healy to create the National Portrait Gallery entry of President Lincoln in 1887.

2018

First Place:
Ayers, Edward, The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America

Finalists:
Chernow, Ron, Grant
Hunter, Tere, Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century
Lineberry, Cate, Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Peck, Graham A., Making an Antislavery Nation Lincoln, Douglas and the Battle over Freedom
Rhea, Gordon, On to Petersburg: Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864
Smith, Adam I. P., The Stormy Present: Conservatism and the Problem of Slavery in Northern Politics, 1846-1865

2017

First Place:
James B. Conroy, Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime
Douglas R. Egerton, Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America (Basic Books)

Finalists:
D. H. Dilbeck, A More Civil War: How the Union Waged a Just War
Chandra Manning, Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War
Charles B. Strozier, Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed

Special Achievement Award:
Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon on Lincoln: Letters


2016
First Place:
Martha Hodes, Mourning Lincoln

Finalists:
Michael Anderegg, Lincoln and Shakespeare
Eric Foner for Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
Richard Wightman Fox for Lincoln’s Body: A Cultural History
Earl J. Hess for Civil War Infantry Tactics: Training, Combat, and Small-Unit Effectiveness
Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell for Lincoln and the Jews: A History
John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier for Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American

2015
First Place:
Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion


Finalists:
William Blair – With Malice Toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era
Richard Brookhiser – Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln
James B. Conroy – Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865
Joshua Zeitz – Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image

2014
First Place:
Allen C. Guelzo, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion
Martin P. Johnson, Writing the Gettysburg Address

Special Achievement Award:
Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln"

Finalists:
Christopher Hager, Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing
Margaret Humphreys, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War
Robert E. May, Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America
John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis, The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On