Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals is a fabulous book and the fact that it took me nearly a year to finish it has nothing to do with the book or the quality of the writing.
Each time I picked up the book, I practically devoured the pages. Each time life intervened I had to literally tear myself away…and I had to leave the book behind, untouched, because there was no way I could read it at a measured, practical pace.
Granted I have long been interested in books about Lincoln. I have a small collection on my shelves, but none of them address about Lincoln's character and his political and social acumen the way this book does. I am not a scholar. I actually knew very little about Lincoln's cabinet members although now I am itching to learn more about Seward, and generally, although I love biography, I would not think that politics or the inner workings of politics or a Presidential cabinet would be interesting. I was wrong. I was fascinated.
The book has played a tremendous role in how I look at so much going on in the world today because I was so wrapped up in the details of what was going on in the world, at least the American World, then.
I started the book last fall. Then I had to put it down. I started again in February or early March and got about 3/4 of the way through before I put it down again. I finally finished it early this month, and even though I knew how the book would end, who wouldn't, it tore me apart. Although the book is long and it is a work of history, seemingly assiduously researched, it is not a book I so much read as absorbed. With each page I felt transported into another life and time. I mourned with the nation when Lincoln died even though I knew it was inevitable. I finished late at night and went to bed in tears. I was that wrapped up in the story.
Another time I cried was when Lincoln was re-elected. Here we are involved in an unpopular war (but then all Amreican wars have drawn considerable protest). The Democratic candidate was McClellan, a popular general, running on a platform to end the war. I was stunned by this quote:
Most impressive, the soldier vote had swung overwhelmingly in his favor. In the armies of the West, he won eight out of ten votes, and even in McClellan's Army of the Potomac, Lincoln earned the votes of seven out of every ten soldiers. Many of these soldiers still admired McClellan but could not countenance the defeatist Democratic platform or the fact that the Confederacy was obviously hoping the young Napoleon would win. But there was something else, something Democrats had failed to understand. Over the years, Lincoln had inspired an almost mystical devotion among his troops. "The men had come to regard Mr. Lincoln with sentiments of veneration and love", noted an Illinois corporal. "To them he really was 'Father Abraham,' with all that the term implied." By supporting Lincoln, the soldiers understood that they were voting to prolong the war, but the voted with their hearts for the president they loved and the cause that he embodied.
I can't imagine anything like this happening today.