Book Excerpt: ‘A Horse for Mr. Lincoln’ (Part 4)

The statue of the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln is seen inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

Editor’s note: The following is the fourth in a series of excerpts from “A Horse for Mr. Lincoln” by the Hon. Preston Manning, a self-described “lifelong fan of Lincoln.” Illustrated by Henri de Groot, the book is a work of fiction and looks at how events in the United States might have turned out differently, with the country being much more unified today if Abraham Lincoln had not gone to the theatre on that fateful night of April 14, 1865.

The other excerpts can be found in the following links: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

7. THE HIGH GROUND ADDRESS

Before leaving the Presidency, Mr. Lincoln very kindly arranged for me to secure a position with the State Department. I therefore left his employ in the summer of 1869, shortly after he and Mrs. Lincoln returned to Springfield. I knew then that no matter what the future might hold for me, it could never be as exciting or fulfilling as those years I had spent in his service.