Captivating Character of the Month: July

It should be obvious who my captivating character of the month is. It's our sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln! I have been captivated by this man ever since I can remember and have read many books about him over the years. For most of the twentieth century the only biography of Lincoln that was available was written by Carl Sandburg. Everyone I know LOVED that book. Then came David Herbert Donald's biography; another fantastic book that everyone in my sphere read and discussed. In the past two years several additional books have been published. John Cribb's The Rail Splitter, Lincoln's Lady Spymaster by Gerri Willis, Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard and Jon Meacham's And There Was Light. All of these books were phenomenal. Also, a biography of the Booth family, Lincoln's assassin, was published by Karen Fowler. It seems that even today we cannot get enough of Honest Abe.

This month I read The Rail Splitter, Lincoln's Lady Spymaster, Courting Mr. Lincoln and Booth. I have learned about different aspects of Lincoln's life from each of them. The Rail Splitter gives more information about his childhood. The Lincoln family moved often and after the death of his mother, the baptist church greatly influenced him. From the church he gained his abolitionist views. Courting Mr. Lincoln tells us about his attraction to Mary Todd. This book shows me how ahead of his time Lincoln was. Mary Todd was the daughter of a wealthy man and you would expect her to have many suitors. However, she was too forthcoming in giving her opinions on politics which turned off many men. Lincoln was different though. He not only enjoyed listening to her but needed her expert political strategy in order to get elected to all of the offices he held. Their marriage was a political union. In Booth we learn that most of the family liked Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth didn't and assassinated him. And There Was Light revealed the depths of depression to which he succumbed. The book tells us that there were seven events in Lincoln's life that made him suicidal. While I knew he suffered depression I had no idea that his friends and family had to watch over him to prevent Lincoln from killing himself. How odd that history records that his wife is the one who is mentally unstable.

I can never get enough of reading about this man. Having grown up in Illinois, my education about Lincoln began in kindergarten. I am probably going to re-read Sandburg and Donald's biographies fairly soon and perhaps it's time for a visit to the Lincoln Library in Springfield, IL.