Abraham Lincoln: The Enigmatic President

While a work of deftly crafted fiction, Maelstrom is based on historical events and personalities and brings the reader into the center of the what would become the American Civil War. As a novelist, James Best has an extraordinary and genuine flair for the kind of character and narrative driven storytelling style that is ideal for an historical novel. A riveting read from start to finish, Maelstrom is unreservedly recommended for the personal reading lists of readers with an interest in the Civil War era and the roles played by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, as well as community library Historical Fiction collections. Jim Cox Midwest Book Review

The South Was Right by James Ronald Kennedy and Walther Donald Kennedy I am not an advocate of Lost Cause, but in writing Maelstrom , I needed to understand it. One of the books I read was The South Was Right. The authors claim the Civil War was not about slavery, and the Southern states had a right to secede from the oppressive North. The three points in the preceding sentence encapsulate the Lost Cause and this book. Anyone who has read 1860 campaign platforms, pre-war congressional speeches, or the proceedings at the state secession conventions doubts that the conflict was about slavery. The Confederate Constitution also makes it clear. If more evidence is needed, read Confederate political and newspaper reactions to the Emancipation Proclamation. Jefferson Davis, before the Confederate Congress, protested the Emancipation Proclamation: “Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man.” Freeing slaves was the worst ac...

The Historical Novel Society judged Maelstrom as "polished, authoritative historical fiction with clear thematic ambition and solid craft." Complete Comments This is a confident and historically grounded opening that immediately signals seriousness of intent. Beginning with the photographic sitting at Abraham Lincoln’s appointment with Mathew Brady is a smart choice: it frames image-making, reputation, and political self-fashioning as thematic pillars before moving into the Cooper Union speech. The recreation of the address is strong, and the rhythm of the quoted passages carries authentic moral weight. The historical detail—gaslight counts, architectural layout, political context—feels well researched without becoming pedantic. Characterisation of Lincoln is respectful yet human. His physical awkwardness contrasted with intellectual command works well, and the moment where he anticipates shifting from legal to moral argument adds welcome internal tension. Where the chapter c...

  The story of the greatest rivalry in American History. Buy at Amazon

  At the time of the Constitutional Convention, slaveholding states were far stronger than their northern counterparts. After sixty years, the free states’ explosive growth had left the South far behind. It was as if the South was in a footrace wearing concrete boots. Hinton Helper, a mid-19th-century southerner, identifies that concrete as slavery.  The political implications are interesting. During this massive economic transition and with slavery under moral attack, slaveholders managed to retain dominating political power. How did they accomplish this feat? Slaves were treasured assets in the antebellum South. Slaves defined social status. Slaves made plantation owners wealthy. Slaves made life easy. Slavery made everyone who was not a slave feel freer and privileged. Slavery wasn’t just property; it was a way of life and the linchpin of an aristocratic society. How do you protect an asset that can walk away? How do you counter altruists who want to banish that asset? Huma...

Bruce Chadwick's Two American Presidents should have been a perfect reference book for Maelstrom . Maelstrom  chapters alternate between the two presidents to show how each dealt with the same issues, countered the other’s moves, led their respective governments, and used their political powers to sway the outcome. Unfortunately, Chardwick's book was infested with so many errors that I discarded it less than halfway through. Two American Presidents is haphazardly  written  and poorly edited. It is hard to follow the chronology and is occasionally outright wrong in the sequence of events. There are too many good books out there to recommend this one. 

  The photo on the left could be considered the kick-off image for Lincoln's presidential campaign. The photo on the right was taken about two months before his assassination. The presidency ages people, but a war ravages the soul. The photo on the left was taken by Mathew Brady in his New York studio on February 27, 1860, before Lincoln publicly acknowledged that he was a candidate for the presidency. Lincoln was in New York to deliver an address at Cooper Union. Tradition has it that the Cooper Union Address and the Brady photograph taken on the same day propelled Lincoln into the White House. The photo on the right was taken by Alexander Gardner   on February 5, 1865, which was after Lincoln's reelection but before his inauguration. By this time, Gardner had left Brady to run his own studio. (Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1865; Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865; and Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865.) The contrast between the two photographs is dramatic a...

  Jefferson Davis, American William J. Cooper Jr.   Jefferson Davis, American (2000) was published four years after William C. Davis’s Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour (1996). In this reviewer’s opinion, American is a superior biography compared to The Man and His Hour . (More provocatively titled as well.) I judge biographies by if I feel I know the person afterward. After reading The Man and His Hour , I knew what Jefferson did, but after American , I felt I understood this complicated man. Cooper is sympathetic toward Davis and sometimes comes across as an apologist. However, it’s this very sympathy that lifts the book from a dry biography, offering a glimpse of the man in his time. Davis is a difficult subject for a biography. When the Confederacy fled Richmond, most of the records were burned. Consequently, there are far fewer primary sources available to a biographer of a Confederate figure than there are for a Unionist biographer. Thus, Confederate historians re...

How did Antebellum Slaveholders Protect Slavery? How do you protect an asset that can walk away? How do you counter altruists who want to banish that asset? Read the article at American Thinker .

  Book 2 in the American Exceptionalism Series Maelstrom, A Civil War Novel , is now available for Kindle preorder. Release Date June 1, 2026 (Hardcover and paperback will also be available on June 1, 2026) “I enjoyed this.”  Harold Holzer, Lincoln Prize winner and Chair of The Lincoln Forum “See Lincoln as you've never seen him before as he navigates the maelstrom of the Civil War.”  Larry Schweikart, NYTimes #1 bestselling author Maelstrom tells the story of the greatest rivalry in American history. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis led their nations in a must-win fight, and Maelstrom shows how each dealt with the same issues, countered the other’s moves, led their respective governments, and used their political powers to sway the outcome. Read the first chapter free HERE .

President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878 is credited with initiating the White House Easter Egg Roll. Multiple historical accounts indicate that informal egg-rolling parties took place on the White House grounds as far back as Lincoln's time, and perhaps Lincoln’s young son, Tad, should get the credit for starting the Easter tradition. Tad even dyed his own eggs and showed them off to his father. During Lincoln’s time, rolling hard-boiled eggs down lawn slopes was a popular Easter pastime. The White House gatherings, however, were small, semi-private affairs rather than the large public spectacles of today. Uninvited kids typically rolled eggs on the Capitol grounds until the damage to the lawn became so extensive that Congress banned the practice in the mid-1870s. That’s when President Hays opened up the White House South Lawn to the public for the White House Easter Egg Roll. Other than Tad and friends rolling eggs on the lawn, Easter observances for the First Family were low-key an...

The story of the greatest rivalry in American history   Here is the final cover for Maelstrom, A Civil War Novel. 

James Madison wrote a revealing letter to Thomas Jefferson in October of 1788. The following extract from the letter offers insight into Madison’s mindset and that of many of the Founders. Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done ...  restrictions, however strongly marked on paper, will never be regarded when opposed to the decided sense of the public This is an incredibly prescient letter. A good example of Madison’s wisdom would be the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). The Missouri Compromise (1820) prohibited slavery above Parallel 36°30′, and pro-slavery forc...

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Everything might change, of course, but for now, I have selected the book cover prototype below. If this cover is finally used, a graphic designer will dress it up to make it look professional.  Comments welcome.  

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Kearns Goodwin Goodwin’s smooth style is reader-friendly. Team of Rivals , published in 2005, has become a standard in the crowded Lincoln genre, winning the Lincoln Prize and the Book Prize for American History.  Team of Rivals was also a finalist for several other prizes. More than 18,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, making him one of the most documented figures in history. To market a new perspective, many Lincoln scholars seek to offer a unique take on one of the most studied men in history. Goodwin, when not the narrator herself, allows Lincoln’s cabinet to tell his story.  Every president since George Washington has governed with a cabinet, and the cabinet is often given short shrift by historians. Rightly so, in many cases. But Lincoln was different. He filled his cabinet and lesser positions with his Republican competitors, northern Democratic Party leaders, and other powerful rivals within...

Proper decorum be damned. In 1856, Senator Sumner from Massachusetts gave a mocking speech meant to ridicule slave owning Democrats. Democrats would have none of it. They puffed up with sanctimony and called Sumner’s speech “self-righteously insolent.” They believed slavery was a general good, and a Republican had no right to challenge their narrative.  A day or so later, Congressman Preston Brooks waltzed into the Senate chamber and marched up to Senator Sumner and blindsided him with his cane. Southern senators could have stopped him, but instead watched as he beat Sumner on the head with all his might. Sumner suffered incapacitation for nearly five years. Brooks was quoted as saying that it was fortuitous that he caught Sumner in “a helpless attitude” because “Sumner had superior strength and if mindful, he would have needed to shoot him with his revolver.” The entire South applauded and exulted Brooks for his bravery. When Republican Congressman Burlingame chastised Brooks ...

During the American Civil War, soldiers were allowed to vote by mail. This was the first instance of mail-in ballots in the nation's history. At the time, of course, only men had the right to vote. In the 1862 mid-year elections, many soldiers were given leave to return home to vote. It was detrimental to the war effort, so in 1864 the Union tried a new concept: mail-in ballots. Lincoln felt this was important to his reelection because a higher proportion of Republicans enlisted.  On September 27, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant wrote to the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton: The exercise of the right of suffrage by the officers and soldiers of armies is a novel thing. A very large proportion of legal voters of the United States are now either under arms in the field, or in hospitals, or otherwise engaged in the military service of the United States … they are American citizens, having still their homes and social and political ties binding them to the States and districts from which they come...

The American Civil War was a technology incubator. Rifled weapons, repeaters, telegraphs, trains, balloons, and more became common in the military. Naval warfare was revolutionized by steam engines, screw propulsion, iron cladding, underwater boats, and torpedoes. When I went to school, one of my favorite history lessons was about the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack . Nowadays, it's the Monitor versus the  Virginia . The Confederacy captured the Merrimack, modified it internally ,  clad it in iron, and rechristened it the CSS Virginia . The full story of these two ships is full of mystery, drama, and clandestine skullduggery. In its short life span of approximately ten months, six naval officers captained the Monitor. This link takes you to the Google Books page where you can  download a study of these six men. From the introduction: One additional point is worthy of emphasis: these officers were together involved in most of the major actions of the Civil Wa...

    Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Volume 2) by Michael Burlingame To begin, I did not read Volume I because this was a research book for my current novel, Maelstrom , which is about Lincoln as president. I also did not read Volume II . I listened to it, so this is a review of the audio version. I think audio is a good test of writing style, and Burlingame has an excellent style that is so smooth and clear that I seldom rewound. The content is exhaustive. Listening to only Volume II took me over six months. Abraham Lincoln: A Life was my walking companion for untold miles, and Burlingame made every one of those miles enjoyable and educational. Despite voluminous detail, Burlingame made it all interesting. I especially liked all the quotes from newspapers and personal letters , which gave me a sense of the time and public mood.  I began to think of Burlingame as a talkative friend who made me look forward to my daily exercise routine. I identified the narrator's voice as Micha...