Abraham Lincoln brought together one of the most remarkable Cabinet's in presidential history. Among them was Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. Welles describes his role and that of many other prominent men of his day in this fascinating chronicle of the American Civil War and its aftermath. You'll get an inside view of the machinations within and around Lincoln's administration, along with personal anecdotes. Welles brilliantly took a Navy Department in disarray and forged it into a formidable instrument of Union power. He was instrumental in helping to win the war. Long used as a primary source for Lincoln scholars, you can now read Gideon Welles wonderful diaries on your Kindle, well-formatted for a superior reading experience. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

A full-scale life and times biography of an important Civil War figure.

A great Confederate defender of "States rights" paradoxically led the program after the War to impose a national education program that first finished off the South and later became a model for social engineering in the North and around the world.

This collection of highly readable and accessible essays on Lincoln's legacy offers a wide array of perspectives on the enduring impact of the nation's greatest president on leaders, thinkers, and American history. The book explores how Lincoln's words and deeds have influenced the pursuit of justice and freedom and the practice of democracy in the century and a half since he governed.

“With penetrating insight, Lehrman unfolds the contrasts and similarities between these two leaders . . . I savored every page of this magnificent work.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute of Washington’s 2019 book prize Lewis E. Lehrman, a renowned historian and National Humanities Medal winner, gives new perspective on two of the greatest English-speaking statesmen—and their remarkable leadership in wars of national survival. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, as commanders in chief, led their nations to victory—Lincoln in the Civil War, Churchill in World War II. They became revered leaders—statesmen for all time. Yet these two world-famous war leaders have never been seriously compared at book length. Acclaimed historian Lewis Lehrman, in his pathbreaking comparison of both statesmen, finds that Lincoln and Churchill—with very different upbringings and contrasting personalities—led their war efforts, to some extent, in similar ways. As supreme war lords, they were guided not only by principles of honor, duty, and freedom, but also by the practical wisdom to know when, where, and how to apply these principles. Even their writings and speeches were swords in battle. Gifted literary stylists, both men relied on the written and spoken word to steel their citizens throughout desperate and prolonged wars. And both statesmen unexpectedly left office near the end of their wars—Lincoln by the bullet, Churchill by the ballot. They made mistakes, which Lehrman considers carefully. But the author emphasizes that, despite setbacks, they never gave up. “Deeply researched and elegantly written. . . . a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the past. By expertly conjoining two great leaders in a single volume, he has enhanced our understanding of both.” ―The Wall Street Journal Includes illustrations and photographs

Gideon Welles’s 1861 appointment as secretary of the navy placed him at the hub of Union planning for the Civil War and in the midst of the powerful personalities vying for influence in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. Although Welles initially knew little of naval matters, he rebuilt a service depleted by Confederate defections, planned actions that gave the Union badly needed victories in the war’s early days, and oversaw a blockade that weakened the South’s economy. Perhaps the hardest-working member of the cabinet, Welles still found time to keep a detailed diary that has become one of the key documents for understanding the inner workings of the Lincoln administration. In this new edition, William E. and Erica L. Gienapp have restored Welles’s original observations, gleaned from the manuscript diaries at the Library of Congress and freed from his many later revisions, so that the reader can experience what he wrote in the moment. With his vitriolic pen, Welles captures the bitter disputes over strategy and war aims, lacerates colleagues from Secretary of State William H. Seward to General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, and condemns the actions of the self-serving southern elite he sees as responsible for the war. He just as easily waxes eloquent about the Navy's wartime achievements, extols the virtues of Lincoln, and drops in a tidbit of Washington gossip. Carefully edited and extensively annotated, this edition contains a wealth of supplementary material. The appendixes include short biographies of the members of Lincoln’s cabinet, the retrospective Welles wrote after leaving office covering the period missing from the diary proper, and important letters regarding naval matters and international law.

With the death of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, Andrew Johnson was plunged into a national political morass. Johnson, a Southern Democrat and advocate of states' rights, had been chosen as Lincoln's second-term running mate. Now as Lincoln's successor, he faced a most difficult trial -- a divisiveness that threatened to undo the fabric of a nation desperately trying to mend itself after a great civil strife. For this self-educated tailor from the hills of Tennessee it would prove to be a formidable task. Albeit no stranger to national politics, Johnson was ill-prepared for this sudden change of fortune. Absent from Washington since 1862, he had limited political allies and little ability to foster new ones. Adding to his difficulties, he was a Democrat serving in a Republican administration and a Southerner in the midst of a victorious North. It would have been a daunting task for the ablest of politicians -- nearly impossible for one lacking political acumen. Taking the helm as the 17th President of the United States, Johnson continued Lincoln's effort to reconstruct the Union following the Civil War. While Congress was in recess, he began his restoration process by pardoning many ex-Confederates who were willing to take the oath of allegiance, and by allowing the Southern states to re-establish their governments. But there were radical elements in Congress who bitterly opposed Johnson's approach to Reconstruction. They objected to his rapidity in bringing the former Confederate states back into the Union and his reluctance to support suffrage for the freed slaves. Likely, even Lincoln would have butted up against the same obstacles, but Johnson lacked his predecessor's finesse and soon found himself on a collision course with Congress. Andrew Johnson learned his craft as a politician as he rose from alderman in an Eastern Tennessee village to president of the United States. The Constitution was his fundamental authority and ultimate resource on all questions of state. He was an ardent stump speaker and was quite adept at power politics in the halls of Congress. Yet as the Chief Executive he showed such little political skill in assessing opposition and conquering obstacles during Reconstruction, that the party that put him in the White House ultimately turned from him and he was forced to defend his actions before the bar of the Senate in the country's first presidential impeachment trial. Throughout the journey the Tennessee Tailor, born in abject poverty, fashioned himself as a man of the people. He always held a strong empathy for the common man and equally strong antipathy for members of the aristocracy. Having come from the lower class, mudsill as he referred to himself, he carried a deep compassion for the labourer in the workshop as well as the farmer the field. This book presents the story of this president.