Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks

by Noah Brooks, Michael Burlingame (Editor)

During the Civil War, few outside Abraham Lincoln's immediate circle of family, friends, and advisors had as much access to the president as young California journalist Noah Brooks, who first met Lincoln in Illinois. As the Washington correspondent for the Sacramento Daily Union during the Civil War, Brooks met with Lincoln nearly daily between 1862 and 1865 and was privy to many of the president's decisions and thoughts. Brooks's dispatches, letters, and personal reminiscences―collected here for the first time by noted Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame―offer an intimate portrait of Abraham Lincoln himself as well as an engrossing account of life and politics in wartime Washington.

Genres: History, Civil War

Paperback

First published May 28, 1998

About the author

On the editorial staff of the New York Times and New York Tribune.

Reviews

[Leonard Singer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content is worth reading. The author spent much time with the President during the last years of the war. However, the typography is horrible. The notes are very important to set the context of each report. But they are endnotes which makes reading very clumsy.

[David Engel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tasty look behind the scenes of a great man. Brooks offers quaint, funny, tender scenes of Lincoln's trials and triumphs during his presidency. I especially loved learning a few back stories of events of which I had heard before.

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very enjoyable book. A great compliment to full fledged bio's of Lincoln and other players in Lincoln's administration (Seward, Chase, Welles and more). I had heard of Brooks from the other bio's I have read, so I wanted to get this to round out my collection. I am glad I did. This is filled with his newspaper articles, so he brings us to what was going on right then and there. Very different from the FB blurbs that WH correspondents post, but not entirely, as this clips are happening in the moment. Washington, DC was very different then-roads were not paved, customs were different (the White House was open to all on January 1 and after the Inaugurations). The accounts of the politics was quite interesting, the Civil War seemed distant and the personalities were detailed. The reporting ended soon after the assasination, with one final chapter of his view of Lincoln, of which they had a very close relationship. Very enjoyable read.