In the twenty-four years that Abraham Lincoln lived in Springfield, the city saw its share of crime, corruption and scandal, much of it at the hands of Lincoln's law clients and acquaintances. Erika Holst sheds light on these shady characters, from the man being sued for divorce who claimed that he caught his venereal disease from an outhouse to Governor William Bissell, whose near duel with Jefferson Davis almost made him ineligible to hold office. Learn what prompted a congressional candidate- in an election clerked by Lincoln- to shout down his accuser as some 'spindle-shanked, toad-eating, man-granny, who feeds the depraved appetites of his patrons with gossip and slander.' Read the true stories that fed those depraved appetites, drawn from the newspapers Lincoln read and the docket where he practiced law. In these pages, discover the wicked side of Lincoln's Springfield.

From its founding in the early 1830s, Springfield was a rough frontier town where whiskey flowed freely, gunplay and fistfights abounded and gambling thrived. The Civil War not only brought the horror of warfare home to Springfield but also introduced worldly vices like prostitution that were scarcely known in previous years. Yet throughout its history, Springfield has managed to maintain a veneer of respectability not shared by certain other towns of southwest Missouri that were founded as wild, wide-open mining camps, like Joplin and Granby. Join Larry Wood as he digs beneath the surface of Queen City history to expose notorious characters and capers that would make even Joplinites blush.

Explores the history of Springfield, Missouri.

True stories of Ma Barker, Belle Starr, Bonnie Parker, and other historical female desperadoes of the Midwest . . . Includes photos. Marauders like Jesse James and the Younger gang earned Missouri the title of “Outlaw State,” but the male desperadoes had nothing on their female counterparts . . . Belle “Queen of the Bandits” Starr and Cora Hubbard kept Missouri’s sensationalist newspapers and dime novelists in business with exploits ranging from horse thefts to bank heists. Missouri native Ma Barker and her murderous sons rose to infamy during the gangster era of the 1930s, while Bonnie Parker crisscrossed the state with Clyde Barrow. From savvy burlesque dancers to deadly gold diggers, historian Larry Wood chronicles the titillating stories of ten of the Show-Me State’s shadiest ladies.

“Did he strike you as a rising man?” This is the question that surrounds Abraham Lincoln, the freshly minted lawyer eager to take Springfield by storm. But how can he know if he is rising or falling when so much of his character is yet to be determined including who he loves, what sort of politics he wants to engage in, and even what he believes about key issues plaguing the nation? Picking up at the end of his award-winning debut Young Lincoln, Jan Jacobi’s Lincoln in Springfield continues the saga of Abraham Lincoln’s development, as the young man becomes a young professional and politician. No longer does Lincoln grapple with his upbringing and yearn for freedom to forge his own path, now he is firmly on it—albeit on a borrowed horse and with only tenuous ideas about who exactly it is he wants to become. Follow along, from his time as a fledgling lawyer in Springfield to his first term as a Whig Congressman representing Illinois in Washington, D.C. As he argues cases, builds friendships with allies and rivals alike, marries, and begins his political career, the portrait of the presidential Lincoln will begin to emerge, though not without stumbles along the way. Though he still doesn’t quite know the answer, Lincoln in Springfield— Lincoln on his own for the first time—will begin to discern just what kind of person he is destined to be. “In this fascinating second volume, Lincoln in Springfield, Jacobi’s Lincoln matures with the town and the nation, and comes to understand that their challenges are also to be his.” —Robert Bray, author of Reading with Lincoln “Jan Jacobi’s Lincoln in Springfield is a highly readable, worthy sequel to his Young Lincoln.” —Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

Watch a duel on Bloody Island from the stern of a river pirate's ship and be glad that Abraham Lincoln did not have to keep his appointment. Venture into a brothel where a madam's grin was filled with diamonds or where "Ta Ra Ra Boom de Ay" was hummed for the first time. Witness children forced into labor and aristocrats driven to suicide. Keep company with the gangsters who were a little too "cuckoo" for Al Capone. Visit Wicked St. Louis.