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From the New York Times bestselling presidential biographer comes the greatest untold story of the Civil War: how two American presidents faced off as the fate of the nation hung in the balance—and how Abraham Lincoln came to embrace emancipation as the last, best chance to save the Union.

Of all the books written on Abraham Lincoln, there has been one surprising gap: the drama of how the “railsplitter” from Illinois grew into his critical role as U.S. commander-in-chief, and managed to outwit his formidable opponent, Jefferson Davis, in what remains history’s only military faceoff between rival American presidents. Davis was a trained soldier and war hero; Lincoln a country lawyer who had only briefly served in the militia. Confronted with the most violent and challenging war ever seen on American soil, Lincoln seemed ill-suited to the task: inexperienced, indecisive, and a poor judge of people’s motives, he allowed his administration’s war policies to be sabotaged by fickle, faithless cabinet officials while entrusting command of his army to a preening young officer named George McClellan – whose defeat in battle left Washington, the nation’s capital, at the mercy of General Robert E. Lee, Davis’s star performer.

The war almost ended there. But in a Shakespearean twist, Lincoln summoned the courage to make, at last, a climactic decision: issuing as a “military necessity” a proclamation freeing the 3.5 million enslaved Americans without whom the South could not feed or fund their armed insurrection. The new war policy doomed the rebellion—which was in dire need of support from Europe, none of whose governments now would dare to recognize rebel “independence” in a war openly fought over slavery. The fate of President Davis was sealed.

With a cast of unforgettable characters, from first ladies to fugitive coachmen to treasonous cabinet officials, Lincoln vs. Davis is a spellbinding dual biography from renowned presidential chronicler Nigel Hamilton: a saga that will surprise, touch, and enthrall.

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“A magisterial, riveting account. More than a military or political history, this mesmerizing dual biography offers deep insights into two indomitable, history-altering personalities—born only miles apart in Kentucky—who come to see America in completely different way: one as a free, united, democratic nation, the other as a divided country where human bondage can long endure. Our frighteningly divided country needs this book urgently.”
Harold Holzer, Winner of the Lincoln Prize
“In today’s bitterly divided America, ever more of us find ourselves thinking of the fateful moment when this country did divide in two. You will find no better guide for a journey back to that era than expert biographer Nigel Hamilton. He has found a fresh and intriguing way of framing the story in his absorbing tale of the two principal antagonists—and of some remarkable parallels between them.”
Adam Hochschild, New York Times bestselling author of Spain in Our Hearts and American Midnight
"I have always wanted to read about the parallel presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Now at last I can, thanks to Nigel Hamilton. Lincoln vs. Davis will be essential for anyone who seeks to understand the rivalry at the heart of the war."
Ted Widmer, author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington
"A worthy companion to his magisterial trilogy on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s leadership in World War II, Nigel Hamilton’s similar study of Abraham Lincoln (a born politician) and Jefferson Davis (a born soldier) is chock full of vivid character sketches and trenchant analysis, showing how and why these two leaders each came, via different routes during the first year and a half of the Civil War, to make a momentous decision in September 1862—choices that, as Lincoln vs. Davis convincingly argues, fatefully determined the outcome of the conflict."
Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life
“This split-screen biopic of two presidents waging war ‘under false pretenses’—while first ladies Mary Lincoln and Varina Davis lift up their voices and an offstage chorus grumbles and applauds and gnashes their teeth—achieves something I wouldn’t have thought possible given the buckets of ink that have been spilt pondering how this divided country inched toward emancipation: fresh and sometimes startling insights, in a book that is hard to put down.”
Lawrence N. Powell, Professor Emeritus, Tulane University
“A monumental study of an equally monumental subject: the competing wartime presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Hamilton expertly slows down time just enough for the reader to see all the intricate parts of the machine of war. Yet the story he tells—part Shakespeare, part Spielberg—is still a thrill ride.”
Michael Vorenberg (Brown University), author of Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War
“A fascinating comparison between these two men and their development under the pressures of war…. [Lincoln vs. Davis] offers a unique perspective on the two men who uniquely shaped how their respective governments organized and conducted their war plans and why Lincoln was ultimately more successful.”
New York Journal of Books
“Brilliant… Hamilton’s frank assessment is buoyed by keen use of diaries and other primary sources, as well as colorful prose. Books on the Civil War are a dime a dozen, but this is one of the most well-written and thoughtful works to appear in years. It is a story of a country at war with itself and of the two men who found themselves at its center. Men who shaped events, yes, but who also found themselves at their mercy.”
The Washington Examiner
“[An] ingenious account… It wasn’t until Lincoln understood how essential slave labor was to Davis that he understood how important it was to take it away, Hamilton suggests.… A penetrating and surprisingly fresh take on an oft-rehashed subject.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Hamilton portrays in powerful detail Lincoln’s inability to take decisive action that puts to shame any notion of the so-called team of rivals assembled by a canny president who knew how to play Cabinet members off one another…. You will spend a long time in this book wondering if Lincoln is ever going to come to his senses. The waiting period will seem as long as it seemed to his contemporaries. And you will be just as shocked as his Cabinet was to discover that he had made up his mind without their input.”
The New York Sun

On Sale: Nov 5, 2024
Page Count: 800 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN-13: 9780316564632

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Nigel Hamilton

About the Author

Historian Nigel Hamilton is a New York Times best-selling biographer of General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, President John F. Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among other subjects. He has won multiple awards, including the Whitbread Prize and the Templer Medal for Military History. The first volume of his FDR a War trilogy, The Mantle of Command, was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a senior fellow at the McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts Boston, and splits his time between Boston, Massachusetts, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

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Nigel Hamilton

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