Lincoln's Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President's Mission to Destroy the Press

by Jeffrey Manber, Neil Dahlstrom

In the blistering summer of 1861, President Lincoln began pressuring and ordering the physical shutdown of any Northern newspaper that voiced opposition to the war. These attacks were sometimes carried out by soldiers, sometimes by angry mobs under cover of darkness. Either way, the effect was a complete dismantling of the free press.
In the midst stood publisher John Hodgson, an angry bigot so hated that a local newspaper gleefully reported his defeat in a bar fight. He was also firmly against Lincoln and the war--an opinion he expressed loudly through his newspaper.
When his press was destroyed, first by a mob, then by U.S. Marshals "upon authority of the President of the United States," Hodgson decided to take on the entire United States. Thus began a trial in which one small-town publisher risked imprisonment or worse, and the future of free speech hung in the balance.
Based on 10 years of original research, Lincoln's Wrath brings to life one of the most gripping, dramatic and unknown stories of U.S. history.

Genres: Civil War, History, American History, Politics, Biography

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent writing on critical history

This is no amateurish work and certainly deserves wider popularity than it has received. Freedom in the abstract is given much lip service. Not so much in the concrete reality such as that represented by the American Stalin.

[Nathan Casebolt · Rating 2 out of 5]

How much freedom should the press have in extreme times? During the American Civil War, this question received two answers in the North: one from violent mobs that attacked and destroyed antiwar newspapers, and one from the Lincoln administration that sought to silence editors considered a threat to the Union cause. In 1863, these twin answers converged in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where a Democratic antiwar editor sought redress after his office was vandalized by unknown thugs and then confiscated by agents allegedly acting on behalf of the federal government.

The subject is intriguing, especially given that the targets of mob and government violence were typically Southern sympathizers whose views on slavery would be anathema today. The uncomfortable intersection between freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and disturbing speech is still a hot and relevant topic.

However, I didn't find the book all that well written, and I'm not sure the trial at its center is the showcase the authors think it is. The Lincoln administration surely did engage in questionably Constitutional actions throughout the war, but in this case no link was ever established between Philadelphia and the White House. The jury was thus able to sidestep other Constitutional questions and rule solely on the Fourth Amendment merits of a warrantless seizure of property. I think there must be a better-written book somewhere that gets more directly at the key issues of the relationship between government and press in times of crisis.

[Michaelpatrick Keena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about President Abraham Lincoln's other war; the war against those in the North who spoke out against his policy towards the South. To suppress the loyal opposition, Lincoln's administration suspended writ of Habeus Corpus, imprisoned citizens without trial or formal charges, closed down publishing houses and ceased/rigged elections when there was possiblity of Southern sympathy present. Military law was imposed and the Constitution was put on the back burner to "protect" America.