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Seward, September 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
Lincoln's Indispensable Man
Simon & Schuster
September 2012
On Sale: September 18, 2012
Featuring: Seward
720 pages ISBN: 1439121168 EAN: 9781439121160 Kindle: B006IDDAOG Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
From one of our most acclaimed new biographers– the first
full life of the leader of Lincoln’s “team of rivals” to
appear in more than forty years. William Henry Seward was
one of the most important Americans of the nineteenth
century. Progressive governor of New York and outspoken U.S.
senator, he was the odds-on favorite to win the 1860
Republican nomination for president. As secretary of state
and Lincoln’s closest adviser during the Civil War, Seward
not only managed foreign affairs but had a substantial role
in military, political, and personnel matters. Some of
Lincoln’s critics even saw Seward, erroneously, as the power
behind the throne; this is why John Wilkes Booth and his
colleagues attempted to kill Seward as well as Lincoln.
Seward survived the assassin’s attack, continued as
secretary of state, and emerged as a staunch supporter of
President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s controversial successor.
Through his purchase of Alaska (“Seward’s Folly”), and his
groundwork for the purchase of the Canal Zone and other
territory, Seward set America on course to become a world
empire. Seward was not only important, he was
fascinating. Most nights this well-known raconteur with
unruly hair and untidy clothes would gather diplomats,
soldiers, politicians, or actors around his table to enjoy a
cigar, a drink, and a good story. Drawing on hundreds of
sources not available to or neglected by previous
biographers, Walter Stahr sheds new light on this complex
and central figure, as well as on pivotal events of the
Civil War and its aftermath.
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