A book much sought
after by his enemies is William Henry Herndon and Jesse William
Weik, "The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham
Lincoln", 8 vols. (1889; unexpurgated edition). It contains
about all we know of his early life and paints a picture of
sordid ugliness. Its reliability has been disputed. No study of
Lincoln is complete unless one has marched through the "Diary" of
Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, 3 vols. (1911), which is
our most important document showing Lincoln in his Cabinet.
Important sidelights on his character and development are shown
in Ward Hill Lamon, "Recollections of Lincoln" (1911); David
Homer Bates, "Lincoln in the Telegraph Office" (1907); and
Frederick Trevor Hill, "Lincoln as a Lawyer" (1906). A
bibliography of Lincoln is in the twelfth volume of the latest
edition of the "Writings".
The lesser statesmen of the time, both Northern and Southern,
still, as a rule, await proper treatment by detached biographers.
Two Northerners have had such treatment, in Allen Johnson's
"Stephen A. Douglas" (1908), and Frederic Bancroft's "Life of
William H. Seward", 2 vols. (1900). Good, but without the
requisite detachment, is Moorfield Storey's "Charles Sumner",
("American Statesmen Series", 1900).
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