Nigel Hamilton — Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents

Roosevelt House is pleased to present a discussion of historian Nigel Hamilton’s new book Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents. In this vivid and unique dual biography, Hamilton delivers the riveting Civil War tale of how two concurrent American “presidents” faced off as the fate of the nation hung in the balance—and how Abraham Lincoln came to embrace emancipation as the last, best chance to save the Union. The author will be in conversation with Jonathan F. Fanton Director of Roosevelt House, and renowned Lincoln scholar, Harold Holzer.

An enthralling, fascinating account, Lincoln vs. Davis fills what the author sees as a surprising gap in the Lincoln literature: the drama of how the “railsplitter” from Illinois grew into his critical role as U.S. commander-in-chief, and managed to outwit his formidable opponent, Jefferson Davis, in American history’s only military faceoff between rival American presidents. Davis was a trained soldier and war hero; Lincoln, a country lawyer who had only briefly served in the militia. Confronted with an extremely violent and challenging war, Lincoln, according to Hamilton, seemed ill-suited to the task. He was, as Hamilton writes, inexperienced, indecisive, and a poor judge of people’s motives. As a result, says Hamilton, he entrusted command of his army to a young officer named George McClellan—whose defeat in battle left Washington, the nation’s capital, at the mercy of General Robert E. Lee.

The war might have ended there, but, in what Hamilton considers a Shakespearean twist, Lincoln made a climactic decision: issuing as a “military necessity” a proclamation freeing the 3.5 million enslaved Americans without whom the South could not feed or fund their armed insurrection. As Hamilton tells it, this new war policy doomed the rebellion—which was in dire need of support from Europe, none of whose governments would now dare to recognize rebel “independence” in a war openly fought over slavery.

With a cast of unforgettable characters, from first ladies to fugitive coachmen to treasonous cabinet officials, Lincoln vs. Davis is an affecting and surprising American saga.

Nigel Hamilton is a New York Times best-selling biographer of General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, President John F. Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among other subjects. He has won multiple awards, including the Whitbread Prize and the Templer Medal for Military History. The first volume of his FDR at War trilogy, The Mantle of Command, was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a senior fellow at the University of Massachusetts’s McCormack Graduate School. This is his second appearance at Roosevelt House.

Harold Holzer has served since 2015 as the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. A prolific author with more than 50 books to his credit, he won the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Prize for his Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion, and earlier earned a 2008 National Humanities Medal and co-chaired the U. S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. His most recent books are The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media, from the Founding Fathers to Fake News and Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration.