Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:39 AM
Blawg Book Highlighter #19: The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder and the Making of a Great President
Four years before he was elected the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was drawn into a sensational murder trial.
The year was 1856. The case was People v. Anderson and Anderson.
The facts surrounding the case involved a respected Springfield, Illinois blacksmith named George Anderson, who was found bludgeoned to death after having endured weeks of strychnine poisoning. His wife and his nephew, who were alleged to have had a sexual affair, were charged with his murder.
In “The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder and the Making of a Great President,” historian Julie M. Fenster chronicles this salacious trial and Lincoln’s involvement in it and also how it intersected with Lincoln’s emergence on the national political scene.
Lincoln had been asked to join in the prosecution of the case. But in a move that stunned the prosecutor and the community, Lincoln instead joined the defense team at the 11th hour. Although he came in at the very end of the court proceedings, Lincoln played a key role in the defendants’ acquittal.
Booklist calls Fenster’s book “a worthy addition to our ever-expanding knowledge concerning America’s secular saint.” Patrick T. Reardon writes for the Chicago Tribune that the “The Case of Abraham Lincoln” is much more than a courtroom drama, but is rather “a beautifully nuanced portrait of Lincoln in the turning-point of 1856 when the former Whig joined the new Republican party, gave what many considered to be his greatest speech and suddenly found himself a national figure.” The book gets a starred review from Kirkus, which finds it to be “An unexpected, odd-angle approach to Lincoln that proves marvelously insightful.” Publishers Weekly’s praise is more muted, finding it “a worthwhile but labored read.”
Fenster has written six books on a wide range of historical topics. You can get a glimpse of some of her thoughts as she was researching and writing “The Case of Abraham Lincoln” in her American Heritage magazine blog.
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Randy Richardson is an author, humorist, former journalist, and a lawyer. His fiction debut, Lost in the Ivy, a murder mystery set against the backdrop of Chicago's storied Wrigley Field, won the Writers Marketing Association's “Fresh Voices” Book Award and the Illinois Woman's Press Association's Mate E. Palmer Communications Contest. He writes the Dad Libs column for SanityCentral.com and is a frequent contributor to Chicago Parent magazine. In his day job, he is an attorney for the Social Security Administration’s disability appeals branch. At night and during lunch breaks, he serves as president of the Chicago Writers Association (chicagowrites.org) and works on his second novel while a 4-year-old tugs on his legs. Visit his website at www.lostintheivy.com.
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