‘Abraham Lincoln: A History–Vol. I’: Up Close and Personal Observations

What better documenters of the 16th president’s political, professional, and personal actions and words than his two faithful private secretaries.

Abraham Lincoln's private secretaries compile an intimate and voluminous biography of the 16th president. (Left) John George Nicolay and (Right) John M. Hay. Public Domain

In an exhibition area at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership, is a 34-foot-high stack of books representing the countless volumes written about the president. Historians, professors, and novelists have weighed in on the famous figure’s unconventional political rise, tumultuous war-time presidency, and violent death. Yet no one—not even Carl Sandburg, who wrote a six-volume biography on Lincoln—have provided as direct an insight into the minutiae of the man’s life as those who were by his side daily.

The three-story tower of book replicas is one of the main features of the Center for Education and Leadership in the nation's capital. Dsdugan/CC BY-SA 4.0