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REVIEWS

What others are saying about Lincoln Legends

Harold Holzer

in the Introduction to Lincoln Legends.

"Abraham Lincoln would have certainly liked Edward Steers, Jr. For twenty productive years, Steers has labored to correct the legend and tell the truth - the whole truth and nothing but the truth - whether about the conspiracy that ended Lincoln's life, or the complicity of the physician who treated his murderer after the assassination("His name is still Mudd, Steers famously concluded). Steers is a relentless researcher, a wise analyst, a reliable resource for his fellow scholars and countless readers, and a no-nonsense talker and writer. No detail is too obscure to earn his attention, no claim to ingrained or improbable to escape his close scrutiny. His precision and capacity for obtaining and retaining information have become the stuff of legends of their own."

Allen C. Guelzo

Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era & Director,Civil War Era Studies, Gettysburg College

"Perhap's it's a measure of Lincoln's greatness that many myths and legends have sprung up around him. The problem is that this howlers are still taken as fact by so many Americans, that we can hardly see Lincoln through them. A lot of time could be tilted at these legends, but Ed Steers's delightful romp through the myths, whacking them down one by one, is funny and instructive all at the same moment. Once you've watched Steers crunch down on such horse chesnuts as the "martyrdom" of Samuel Mudd, the "escape" of John Wilkes Booth, and Lincoln's sexuality and illegitimacy and paternity, your view of Lincoln will never be the same - and it's a good thing!"

Joseph E. Garrera

Executive Director of The Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum

"Brilliantly arranged... one of the most informative books ever written, belongs on the bookshelf of every lover of history!"

Frank J. Williams

Founding Chair of the Lincoln Forum

With the acuity of the scientist he is, Ed Steers, Jr. searches for the truth about many of the stories relating to Abraham Lincoln. And he discovers it, too, in subjects ranging from the genesis of the Gettysburg Address; the veracity of reports that the president appeared before the Committee on the Conduct of the War to defend his wife, Mary; to the legitimacy of his birth. These and more fascinating tales are discussed in a beautiful and succinct style."

Thomas F. Schwartz

Illinois State Historian, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, Illinois.

"Ed Steers takes many widely held views about Abraham Lincoln and places them under the microscope to see if all the supporting evidence holds up under scrutiny. These are the very stories that have wide circulation because academic historians tend to dismiss them rather than confront them. As a result, the stories become adopted by the public ... Lincoln Legends serves a very useful corrective to many of these long-held myths about Lincoln."