Pretty good group biography of Lincoln, Seward, Chase, and Bates — with additional interest in Stanton and glancing mention of the rest of the cabinet. Has the bad tendency to get too hagiographic at points, doing things like going on about how empathetic Lincoln was for getting saddened by a battlefield w/ the dead and wounded. Also not sure why Bates gets an early focus here, outside of trying to represent the conservative wing of the party.

Still pretty interesting and a capable look at how Lincoln made decisions, almost always choosing the options that would keep him in the middle of his party and coalition. And it worked out, for the specific choices of the Civil War — but you get the sense it might have been about to run aground during Reconstruction, even with Lincoln's leadership instead of Johnson's racist mania. One of Lincoln's strengths is he could be slowly steered by the reality of the situation, roughly at the same pace as public opinion, but his interest in restoring the union necessarily trampled over the interests of freedmen, as became evident when the South rapidly worked to rebuild the same structures of social control under the new set of rules.

Sucks that it came out in 2005, because Obama and company read it and took all the wrong lessons!