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Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War
Biography
642 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1962
About the author
Benjamin P. Thomas
38 books7 followersThe son of a storekeeper, Benjamin Platt Thomas was two years old when his father died. After his mother's remarriage to a Baptist minister, Thomas moved frequently throughout the mid-Atlantic states. He earned his bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University, and returned after a brief period as a teacher and bond salesman to earn his doctorate. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1929 Thomas taught as an associate professor of history at Birmingham-Southern College, in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 1932, Thomas accepted an offer to become executive secretary of the Abraham Lincoln Association. In that role he edited the organization's quarterly publication and wrote two books published by the Association. Thomas left the Association in 1937 and worked in insurance and as a farmer for several years. He returned to the Abraham Lincoln Association in 1939 by becoming a director, and took up the position of the body's treasurer three years later. Thomas sold his insurance business in 1944 to focus on scholarship, and wrote a series of books, the most notable of which, his 1952 biography of Abraham Lincoln, became a national bestseller. He was working on a biography of Lincoln's second secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, when he committed suicide after receiving a diagnosis of throat cancer.
In 1932, Thomas accepted an offer to become executive secretary of the Abraham Lincoln Association. In that role he edited the organization's quarterly publication and wrote two books published by the Association. Thomas left the Association in 1937 and worked in insurance and as a farmer for several years. He returned to the Abraham Lincoln Association in 1939 by becoming a director, and took up the position of the body's treasurer three years later. Thomas sold his insurance business in 1944 to focus on scholarship, and wrote a series of books, the most notable of which, his 1952 biography of Abraham Lincoln, became a national bestseller. He was working on a biography of Lincoln's second secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, when he committed suicide after receiving a diagnosis of throat cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 2, 2026
While having been superseded by Walter Stahr’s much more recent (and more objective, in my view) work, this biography of Edwin Stanton is still full of information and details on the life of a crucial Civil War era figure. Stanton was both James Buchanan’s last Attorney General, as the country was breaking apart, and Abraham Lincoln’s second Secretary of War, after the disastrous ten-month reign of his predecessor Simon Cameron. Stanton, as events proved, was well-qualified for both posts, having been a top-flight attorney in his native Ohio and then in Pittsburgh before relocating to D.C. He also had an excellent gift for being a superb administrator as far as organizational skills went.
This book has two authors. Why? Benjamin Thomas, who was a Lincoln scholar, had started work on the book but then died. Harold Hyman picked up his work and finished it. In a brief Preface, Hyman admits that he and Thomas never knew each other. He also admitted that they had some differences over how to treat Stanton and his life, although he does not go into details on what exactly those differences were. Therefore it is impossible to say which of them – in the final product – are responsible for certain views about Stanton and his contemporaries, and about events in his jam-packed life. Since Hyman was the one who finished it, I will assume that most of what is contained in the book was ultimately written or at least tacitly approved by him. With that said, I found the quality of the writing to be very good. Is this detailed? Yes. But within needed context. I did not feel overloaded or bogged down in minutiae. Their overall view of Stanton is rather favorable, which I will get to later.
Unlike so many biographies of figures in the distant past, this one does not skimp on examining Stanton’s early life and upbringing. In fact, this is actually key in attempting to understand the man and his personality. He seemed to be a type-A personality from the beginning, always on the go, always striving to better himself, always wanting to move onto bigger and better things, always wanting to acquire more stuff and make more money. But his boorish, gruff behavior that became his trademark mainly came about due to a series of tragedies. As a young man, his beloved wife died. Then his little daughter died. Then his brother, with whom he was very close, committed suicide. This was a triple whammy for Stanton, and it does not appear that he ever truly recovered from these horrific blows. These events transformed him into a cold, almost menacing person. Adding this to his already highly intense personality made him appear to be an uncaring bull in a China shop, never worrying about anyone’s feelings that he might have trampled on.
Stanton devotes his considerable energies to his budding legal career. His diligent work and ceaseless toiling eventually make him into a successful and sought-after attorney, culminating in him being asked to help the Buchanan administration with some legal work surrounding land grant claims in California. Stanton does such a good job that, not too long after that when Buchanan has a mass exodus of Cabinet officials, Stanton gets the Attorney General portfolio. The authors cover his brief tenure in that office quite well – showing how Stanton, being a Democrat but also an ardent Unionist, expends a lot of energy on trying to buck Buchanan up and make him have somewhat of a spine against fire-breathing Southerners that were attempting to secede from the Union.
After Buchanan’s term ended, Stanton went back into private practice while remaining in D.C. Politically, despite being a Democrat up to this time, he begins to drift further and further away from the party and wants nothing to do with the copperheads. Yet he loathes Lincoln and has an incredibly low opinion of his abilities. But that dislike does not stop him from being willing to meet with Lincoln to discuss coming into his Cabinet as Cameron’s replacement. The two men had met once, in the 1850s in Cincinnati, with Stanton thumbing his nose at country lawyer Lincoln. If Lincoln was insulted at Stanton’s rudeness, he never said so. He knew that, despite his brusqueness, Stanton was a capable man with a strong legal mind and the tenacity of a rabid dog. His mentality was win-at-all-costs, both in the courtroom and in the Cabinet.
Lincoln, especially after his initial blunder of choosing Cameron (who, to be fair, was to an extent forced on him politically), made an astute choice in moving Stanton into the War Office. Stanton quickly eliminated the corruption and the disarray, and started getting things in order. He was an effective Secretary, though his overzealous nature led him to trample on peoples’ rights at times. The authors examine his relations with the revolving door of Generals for the Army of the Potomac, and show how he was just as exasperated as Lincoln was with the likes of George McClellan and his successors. While Stanton had strained relationships with most of the people in his life, surprisingly he ended up becoming very devoted to and protective of Lincoln. Their personalities were quite divergent, but because of that they complemented each other well. Stanton thought Lincoln usually too lenient and would attempt to push a harder line. Lincoln knew that Stanton was difficult, but gave him wide latitude in running the War Department. The key was that both knew that Lincoln was the boss and thus Stanton gave way when he had to.
Up until Lincoln’s assassination, the job that Stanton did was commendable, if not at times outstanding. Following the assassination, the wheels began to come off. Stanton went into overdrive, becoming even more zealous than he was before, except this time it was in casting a huge net in trying to nab the assassination plotters. To this day, there is controversy surrounding his actions as it concerns Mary Surratt. Should she have been hanged? Was she as guilty as the men? What part did Stanton play, and did he tip the scales in favor of her hanging? I think he was definitely more involved than what he admitted to being. But the final call was not his – that belonged to new President Andrew Johnson, who Stanton would soon fall out with over his Reconstruction policy.
The final several chapters cover Stanton’s difficult time under Johnson. Honestly today it almost reads like farce. Lack of communication, disharmony, and dishonesty buy both men led to an untenable situation. Ultimately Stanton barricaded himself inside the War Office, clinging to his position while Johnon repeatedly tried to force him out. Stanton’s ordeal became part of Congress’ impeachment attempt against Johnson, which failed by only one vote in the Senate after the House did vote to impeach him. Only when the trial was done, in late May 1868, did Stanton finally resign. His health was shattered (he suffered greatly from asthma, which led to his death at the end of 1869 right after Ulysses Grant nominated him for the Supreme Court). In many respects, the man literally worked himself to death.
How did the authors treat Stanton? While by no means uncritical, I found their treatment of Stanton to be too willing to justify his decisions and his behavior. This is a man who was a bully. But he was also one of those people who kissed up and punched down. He backed off Lincoln, because Lincoln was his boss. But he verbally abused War Department employees, sometimes when they had done nothing wrong. He had strained relations with pretty much all of his Cabinet colleagues. Despite being close friends with Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase from a few decades earlier, by the time the two worked together in the Cabinet they seemed to be no longer friends (this is one area that I wish the authors had delved into but did not). The authors were too willing to give Stanton cover for some of his more controversial decisions, such as imprisoning many innocent people during the Civil War, based on nothing more than rumors. On page 248 they write: “His and Lincoln’s harsh orders were necessary and desirable…”. Right, unless you happened to be one of the people arrested when you had done nothing wrong. True, Stanton would act quickly to release most of those that were determined to be innocently swept up, but he had no compunction about erring on the side of firmness. Stanton also was not someone who had the ability to apologize when he was clearly in the wrong. He did bully people, and he was nasty about it.
There is a very good chapter that comes immediately after Lincoln’s assassination. The authors stop the narrative and review Stanton’s overall effectiveness in the War Department up to that time, before moving onto a chapter examining Stanton’s relationship with Lincoln. Unfortunately they do not dig deeper into his relations with the Cabinet as a whole. How well did he work with Secretary of State William Seward? The authors give conflicting signals, at one point indicating that Stanton didn’t like anyone else in there, but then other times saying that he and Seward backed each other up several times. The authors also make frequent use of entries from the diary of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. While I am not an ardent admirer of Welles, the authors repeatedly paint him in a poor light in comparison to Stanton. On page 302 they refer to him as “hypercritical”. They focus on criticisms that Welles levelled against Stanton, but do not bother to state if any of it was legitimate. The truth of the matter is that both men were ornery, they had a rivalry due to the services that each oversaw, and they personally disliked each other. Was Welles unfair to Stanton in some of his criticism? I think so. Did Stanton deserve some of it? I think so.
They also at times give Stanton too much credit for things that he was not wholly responsible for. For example, on page 507, writing about Johnson and the Democrats being roundly rejected in the 1866 midterm elections, they say “The overwhelming defeat suffered by the administration was in a sense an endorsement of Stanton, and in a moment of triumph it was not his nature to be humble.” I think the defeat had much more to do with the intense partisanship and mean-spirited nature of Johnson’s personality than it had to do with Stanton trying to protect blacks in the South.
In the end, Stanton is not an especially easy figure to read about. Taciturn at best, he was scarred by early personal tragedies which exacerbated his already abrasive personality. Then again, the entire Civil War era does not make for pleasant reading. He had a role to play, and he played it really well. He was a help to Lincoln, and that man needed all the help that he could get given the situation that he was in. I think Stahr’s biography is more balanced and of overall better quality than this one, but I still enjoyed reading the book and found it well-written even if I was not altogether in accord with the authors’ views on Stanton.
Grade: B
This book has two authors. Why? Benjamin Thomas, who was a Lincoln scholar, had started work on the book but then died. Harold Hyman picked up his work and finished it. In a brief Preface, Hyman admits that he and Thomas never knew each other. He also admitted that they had some differences over how to treat Stanton and his life, although he does not go into details on what exactly those differences were. Therefore it is impossible to say which of them – in the final product – are responsible for certain views about Stanton and his contemporaries, and about events in his jam-packed life. Since Hyman was the one who finished it, I will assume that most of what is contained in the book was ultimately written or at least tacitly approved by him. With that said, I found the quality of the writing to be very good. Is this detailed? Yes. But within needed context. I did not feel overloaded or bogged down in minutiae. Their overall view of Stanton is rather favorable, which I will get to later.
Unlike so many biographies of figures in the distant past, this one does not skimp on examining Stanton’s early life and upbringing. In fact, this is actually key in attempting to understand the man and his personality. He seemed to be a type-A personality from the beginning, always on the go, always striving to better himself, always wanting to move onto bigger and better things, always wanting to acquire more stuff and make more money. But his boorish, gruff behavior that became his trademark mainly came about due to a series of tragedies. As a young man, his beloved wife died. Then his little daughter died. Then his brother, with whom he was very close, committed suicide. This was a triple whammy for Stanton, and it does not appear that he ever truly recovered from these horrific blows. These events transformed him into a cold, almost menacing person. Adding this to his already highly intense personality made him appear to be an uncaring bull in a China shop, never worrying about anyone’s feelings that he might have trampled on.
Stanton devotes his considerable energies to his budding legal career. His diligent work and ceaseless toiling eventually make him into a successful and sought-after attorney, culminating in him being asked to help the Buchanan administration with some legal work surrounding land grant claims in California. Stanton does such a good job that, not too long after that when Buchanan has a mass exodus of Cabinet officials, Stanton gets the Attorney General portfolio. The authors cover his brief tenure in that office quite well – showing how Stanton, being a Democrat but also an ardent Unionist, expends a lot of energy on trying to buck Buchanan up and make him have somewhat of a spine against fire-breathing Southerners that were attempting to secede from the Union.
After Buchanan’s term ended, Stanton went back into private practice while remaining in D.C. Politically, despite being a Democrat up to this time, he begins to drift further and further away from the party and wants nothing to do with the copperheads. Yet he loathes Lincoln and has an incredibly low opinion of his abilities. But that dislike does not stop him from being willing to meet with Lincoln to discuss coming into his Cabinet as Cameron’s replacement. The two men had met once, in the 1850s in Cincinnati, with Stanton thumbing his nose at country lawyer Lincoln. If Lincoln was insulted at Stanton’s rudeness, he never said so. He knew that, despite his brusqueness, Stanton was a capable man with a strong legal mind and the tenacity of a rabid dog. His mentality was win-at-all-costs, both in the courtroom and in the Cabinet.
Lincoln, especially after his initial blunder of choosing Cameron (who, to be fair, was to an extent forced on him politically), made an astute choice in moving Stanton into the War Office. Stanton quickly eliminated the corruption and the disarray, and started getting things in order. He was an effective Secretary, though his overzealous nature led him to trample on peoples’ rights at times. The authors examine his relations with the revolving door of Generals for the Army of the Potomac, and show how he was just as exasperated as Lincoln was with the likes of George McClellan and his successors. While Stanton had strained relationships with most of the people in his life, surprisingly he ended up becoming very devoted to and protective of Lincoln. Their personalities were quite divergent, but because of that they complemented each other well. Stanton thought Lincoln usually too lenient and would attempt to push a harder line. Lincoln knew that Stanton was difficult, but gave him wide latitude in running the War Department. The key was that both knew that Lincoln was the boss and thus Stanton gave way when he had to.
Up until Lincoln’s assassination, the job that Stanton did was commendable, if not at times outstanding. Following the assassination, the wheels began to come off. Stanton went into overdrive, becoming even more zealous than he was before, except this time it was in casting a huge net in trying to nab the assassination plotters. To this day, there is controversy surrounding his actions as it concerns Mary Surratt. Should she have been hanged? Was she as guilty as the men? What part did Stanton play, and did he tip the scales in favor of her hanging? I think he was definitely more involved than what he admitted to being. But the final call was not his – that belonged to new President Andrew Johnson, who Stanton would soon fall out with over his Reconstruction policy.
The final several chapters cover Stanton’s difficult time under Johnson. Honestly today it almost reads like farce. Lack of communication, disharmony, and dishonesty buy both men led to an untenable situation. Ultimately Stanton barricaded himself inside the War Office, clinging to his position while Johnon repeatedly tried to force him out. Stanton’s ordeal became part of Congress’ impeachment attempt against Johnson, which failed by only one vote in the Senate after the House did vote to impeach him. Only when the trial was done, in late May 1868, did Stanton finally resign. His health was shattered (he suffered greatly from asthma, which led to his death at the end of 1869 right after Ulysses Grant nominated him for the Supreme Court). In many respects, the man literally worked himself to death.
How did the authors treat Stanton? While by no means uncritical, I found their treatment of Stanton to be too willing to justify his decisions and his behavior. This is a man who was a bully. But he was also one of those people who kissed up and punched down. He backed off Lincoln, because Lincoln was his boss. But he verbally abused War Department employees, sometimes when they had done nothing wrong. He had strained relations with pretty much all of his Cabinet colleagues. Despite being close friends with Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase from a few decades earlier, by the time the two worked together in the Cabinet they seemed to be no longer friends (this is one area that I wish the authors had delved into but did not). The authors were too willing to give Stanton cover for some of his more controversial decisions, such as imprisoning many innocent people during the Civil War, based on nothing more than rumors. On page 248 they write: “His and Lincoln’s harsh orders were necessary and desirable…”. Right, unless you happened to be one of the people arrested when you had done nothing wrong. True, Stanton would act quickly to release most of those that were determined to be innocently swept up, but he had no compunction about erring on the side of firmness. Stanton also was not someone who had the ability to apologize when he was clearly in the wrong. He did bully people, and he was nasty about it.
There is a very good chapter that comes immediately after Lincoln’s assassination. The authors stop the narrative and review Stanton’s overall effectiveness in the War Department up to that time, before moving onto a chapter examining Stanton’s relationship with Lincoln. Unfortunately they do not dig deeper into his relations with the Cabinet as a whole. How well did he work with Secretary of State William Seward? The authors give conflicting signals, at one point indicating that Stanton didn’t like anyone else in there, but then other times saying that he and Seward backed each other up several times. The authors also make frequent use of entries from the diary of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. While I am not an ardent admirer of Welles, the authors repeatedly paint him in a poor light in comparison to Stanton. On page 302 they refer to him as “hypercritical”. They focus on criticisms that Welles levelled against Stanton, but do not bother to state if any of it was legitimate. The truth of the matter is that both men were ornery, they had a rivalry due to the services that each oversaw, and they personally disliked each other. Was Welles unfair to Stanton in some of his criticism? I think so. Did Stanton deserve some of it? I think so.
They also at times give Stanton too much credit for things that he was not wholly responsible for. For example, on page 507, writing about Johnson and the Democrats being roundly rejected in the 1866 midterm elections, they say “The overwhelming defeat suffered by the administration was in a sense an endorsement of Stanton, and in a moment of triumph it was not his nature to be humble.” I think the defeat had much more to do with the intense partisanship and mean-spirited nature of Johnson’s personality than it had to do with Stanton trying to protect blacks in the South.
In the end, Stanton is not an especially easy figure to read about. Taciturn at best, he was scarred by early personal tragedies which exacerbated his already abrasive personality. Then again, the entire Civil War era does not make for pleasant reading. He had a role to play, and he played it really well. He was a help to Lincoln, and that man needed all the help that he could get given the situation that he was in. I think Stahr’s biography is more balanced and of overall better quality than this one, but I still enjoyed reading the book and found it well-written even if I was not altogether in accord with the authors’ views on Stanton.
Grade: B
July 26, 2013
I think I may have just learned more from this book about the American Civil War than I had from all my prior studying and reading on the topic. With the focus on Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, this book not only highlights the difficulties faced by Lincoln and his cabinet in fighting an internal rebellion while trying to maintain a constitutional democracy, but emphasizes the ideological tensions that continued to mount following Lincoln’s assassination. Most histories I’ve read from this period seem to fizzle out after Lincoln’s death and the trials of those accused in the assassination conspiracy.
As for the man Stanton, author’s Thomas and Hyman seem, in the end, to foster a rather compassionate review of his dedicated service to the nation. They do frequently cite other less-favorable verdicts of his character and performance found in the memoirs of his contemporaries or prior studies by historians, but in most of those cases they provide evidence to cast doubt on those conclusions. They don’t try to deny that Stanton had been a difficult man to work with, or to claim that he was always honest or straightforward, but do seem to maintain that he was to the end a very principled man willing to sacrifice his health and personal happiness for the preservation of the Union as a constitutional democracy.
The troubling questions seemed of unlimited number and impact at that time in our history. Stanton emerges as a central character in our survival as a single nation because of the often tumultuous, but eventually close and effective working relationships he developed first with Lincoln, and later with General Ulysses S. Grant. I finished this book with the feeling that if it were not for this trio, history would have taken a drastically different course.
As for the man Stanton, author’s Thomas and Hyman seem, in the end, to foster a rather compassionate review of his dedicated service to the nation. They do frequently cite other less-favorable verdicts of his character and performance found in the memoirs of his contemporaries or prior studies by historians, but in most of those cases they provide evidence to cast doubt on those conclusions. They don’t try to deny that Stanton had been a difficult man to work with, or to claim that he was always honest or straightforward, but do seem to maintain that he was to the end a very principled man willing to sacrifice his health and personal happiness for the preservation of the Union as a constitutional democracy.
The troubling questions seemed of unlimited number and impact at that time in our history. Stanton emerges as a central character in our survival as a single nation because of the often tumultuous, but eventually close and effective working relationships he developed first with Lincoln, and later with General Ulysses S. Grant. I finished this book with the feeling that if it were not for this trio, history would have taken a drastically different course.
December 2, 2019
You budding Civil War buffs this book is about Edwin M. Stanton who came into Lincoln's Cabinet at
the beginning of 1862. Looking at a group picture of the Cabinet you'll recognize Stanton as the one
with the long beard and sideburns with no mustache and looking like a stern schoolmaster. He was
a man of choleric disposition, frustrated by the fact that he was a lifetime asthma sufferer and had
to control his temper for his own good.
Stanton was born in 1814 in Ohio and went to Kenyon College and then clerked until he became a lawyer. His political affiliation was Democratic and he became quite a good criminal and civil attorney. He was anti-slavery and in his early career was a friend of Free Soil Democrat Salmon P.
Chase.
Stanton did so well he expanded his practice to cover western Pennsylvania. That in turn brought
him to the attention of the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Jeremiah Black who in
turn was a colleague of James Buchanan. When Buchanan became president in 1857, Black became Attorney General and brought
Stanton along and he represented the government in many matters.
At the end of 1860 Stanton succeeded Black as Attorney General for two months at the tail end of
the Buchanan administration as Black became Secretary of State for the same period.
Abraham Lincoln who did not have a great relationship with Stanton up to that point had a knack
for winning people over and gradually won Stanton over. Stanton came into the War Department
and put it on a basis for fighting a war. He was one of many who disapproved of General George
B. McClellan's dilatory tactics and was a firm supporter of Ulysses S. Grant. The graft and corruption that characterized that year of 1861 with Lincoln's first Secretary of War Simon Cameron
disappeared.
When Lincoln was assassinated Stanton became a defacto head of state when he organized the
manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his curious crew of conspirators. It took a while for Andrew
Johnson to warm up to the presidency and Stanton filled the vacuum.
Johnson and Stanton did not remain friends for long. Stanton sympathized with the radical
Republicans and their view of Reconstruction, Johnson was not in sympathy with the freed blacks.
The clash was a bitter one. Congress passed something called the Tenure of Office Act where the
Congress had to approve of the dismissal of federal appointments as well the hiring.
Johnson sought to dismiss Stanton and thus began the battle of Andrew Johnson's impeachment.
In the end Stanton did give up the office with only a few months remaining in Johnson's term.
His friend Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to the Supreme Court, but after the Senate ratified him,
Stanton died after a bad asthma attack.
He was not a nice guy, but Stanton made an invaluable contribution to the northern victory. And
Abraham Lincoln would be the first to admit it.
the beginning of 1862. Looking at a group picture of the Cabinet you'll recognize Stanton as the one
with the long beard and sideburns with no mustache and looking like a stern schoolmaster. He was
a man of choleric disposition, frustrated by the fact that he was a lifetime asthma sufferer and had
to control his temper for his own good.
Stanton was born in 1814 in Ohio and went to Kenyon College and then clerked until he became a lawyer. His political affiliation was Democratic and he became quite a good criminal and civil attorney. He was anti-slavery and in his early career was a friend of Free Soil Democrat Salmon P.
Chase.
Stanton did so well he expanded his practice to cover western Pennsylvania. That in turn brought
him to the attention of the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Jeremiah Black who in
turn was a colleague of James Buchanan. When Buchanan became president in 1857, Black became Attorney General and brought
Stanton along and he represented the government in many matters.
At the end of 1860 Stanton succeeded Black as Attorney General for two months at the tail end of
the Buchanan administration as Black became Secretary of State for the same period.
Abraham Lincoln who did not have a great relationship with Stanton up to that point had a knack
for winning people over and gradually won Stanton over. Stanton came into the War Department
and put it on a basis for fighting a war. He was one of many who disapproved of General George
B. McClellan's dilatory tactics and was a firm supporter of Ulysses S. Grant. The graft and corruption that characterized that year of 1861 with Lincoln's first Secretary of War Simon Cameron
disappeared.
When Lincoln was assassinated Stanton became a defacto head of state when he organized the
manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his curious crew of conspirators. It took a while for Andrew
Johnson to warm up to the presidency and Stanton filled the vacuum.
Johnson and Stanton did not remain friends for long. Stanton sympathized with the radical
Republicans and their view of Reconstruction, Johnson was not in sympathy with the freed blacks.
The clash was a bitter one. Congress passed something called the Tenure of Office Act where the
Congress had to approve of the dismissal of federal appointments as well the hiring.
Johnson sought to dismiss Stanton and thus began the battle of Andrew Johnson's impeachment.
In the end Stanton did give up the office with only a few months remaining in Johnson's term.
His friend Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to the Supreme Court, but after the Senate ratified him,
Stanton died after a bad asthma attack.
He was not a nice guy, but Stanton made an invaluable contribution to the northern victory. And
Abraham Lincoln would be the first to admit it.
July 21, 2018
Very well researched and written bio of Lincoln's Secretary of War. Stanton was a Buchanan Democrat who switched parties and became an ardent ally of Lincoln and worked tirelessly to win the war, free all the slaves and to make sure that all had the right to vote, the ability to vote and the freedom to vote. After the death of Lincoln and the rise of Andrew Johnson, Stanton had to fight very hard to make sure this happened and that Johnson did not undo all that was fought for. An unsung American hero and an important leader for the rights of all.
March 13, 2009
This was read long ago, but I do remember that it provided a unique perspective by General Benjamin Thomas - as a military man. He was complimentary of Lincoln and Lincoln's grasp of overall strategy. The book copy I have was published in 1962. I would have been living in Canada at the time.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews