The Turn: a bond that shaped history

Abraham Lincoln's Lost Stories #2

by D.L. Fowler

BASED ON TRUE EVENTS. A truth that refuses to die. A story history has all but forgotten.

After escaping bondage, twenty-five-year-old William Henry Johnson goes to the nation’s capital as Abraham Lincoln’s valet, hoping the new president will help him reunite his family. But when Lincoln chooses an expedient peace over racial justice, the war against slavery will be lost—unless Johnson can turn him from long-held prejudices and convince him to embrace equality. Changing Lincoln's heart and mind comes at a severe price.

430 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 4, 2021

About the author

DL Fowler trained as a military linguist after receiving a BA in English from USC. His skills as a communicator have contributed to his success over the years. As a novelist, he likes to get inside people’s heads and write about what he finds there – keeping readers on the edge of their seats while he touches the depths of their souls. He lives with his wife near their three grandchildren in the Pacific Northwest.

Reviews

[Jennifer Chushcoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his biographical novel, THE TURN, DL Fowler weaves together the mysterious story of William Henry Johnson, a man forgotten by U.S. history, but one that most certainly played a role in creating it. As Lincoln’s personal barber and valet, Johnson didn’t influence the President by whispering into his ear, he was the living embodiment of the price paid trying to keep the Union together, a daily reminder that half measures were an insult to humanity. Because calculating the cost of peace, where humans enter the equation, is an impossible endeavor.

Throughout the story, these two men with vastly different backgrounds, but similar aims, discover their duty to each other and to the Nation as they journey together in their final years. As destinies intertwine more deeply and tragically, we see growth is painful and doesn’t travel in a straight line. This is the first book of its kind to probe Lincoln’s policy shift and connect it to Johnson, a man so close to the President that he helped edit the Gettysburg Address. Johnson was never Lincoln’s shadow. He was his mirror.

While the policy shift regarding racial equality came too late for Johnson, its legacy lives. Perhaps, Lincoln and Johnson would be surprised to see the embers of inequality still smoldering. I hope they would be heartened to know that authors like Fowler are dedicated to probing history and honoring the unsung.

[Susan Lampe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Award-winning historical novel offers readers a unique view of President Abraham Lincoln through the bond he formed with a freed slave, William Henry Johnson, who became his valet. Fowler, known as "The Lincoln Guy" discovered William through meticulous research and footnotes. This is a book about dreams and journeys in a time of history fraught with war and angst over slavery. In a symphony of circumstances, William attains freedom in Kansas, is recaptured but freed again by Captain John Brown. He searches for his brother's wife and child after he witnessed them sold on an auction block but ends up in Springfield, Illinois, where he becomes a barber's apprentice and then meets Abe Lincoln, one of the shop's customers. Lincoln and his wife Mary become fond of William who helps them with their sons and assorted chores as Lincoln's political career blossoms. When Lincoln becomes president in 1860, William finds himself included in the journey by train to Washington, D.C. where he becomes Lincoln's personal barber and often confidant. Still in search of his lost relatives, William lives in the White House basement but works to persuade and inform Lincoln about racial prejudice and the benefits of equality. He uses the mantra "If liberty is the summit, equality is its base."
Once I opened this book, I could not put it down. Fowler adeptly intertwines characters and history into a fascinating read. Fowler's novels are curated by The Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.

[Bonni L Opthof · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information , well told!

I appreciated the day to day information about how they lived.

I also learned many things about the Civil War that I had not known.

The book was fun to read, the characters engaging, and the plot kept moving with info and intrique. I couldn't stop reading.

It was not a fun era. But Larry was compassionate in sharing the emotions of the tough times.

I really liked seeing the "Turn"... Lincoln becoming aware of what equality really means.