Refusing to honor...removal order: George C. Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton, Vol. II (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Riverside Press, 1899), p. 444.

"barricaded himself": Pratt, Stanton, p. 452.

taking his meals in the department: Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, p. 595.

Tenure of Office Act: "Tenure of Office Act," in The Reader's Companion to American History, ed. Foner and Garraty, pp. 1,06364.

impeachment failed...submitted his resignation: Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, p. 608.

Grant nominated him..."only office": Wolcott, "Edwin M. Stanton," p. 178.

short-lived...severe asthma attack: Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. IX, ed. Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935; 1964), p. 520; Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, pp. 63738; Christopher Bates, "Stanton, Edwin McMasters," in Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, ed. Heidler and Heidler, p. 1852.

"I know that it is...he was then": Robert Todd Lincoln to Edwin L. Stanton, quoted in Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, p. 638.

close-knit family...Confederate Army: Cain, Lincoln's Attorney General, p. 330.

"it was in his social...death cannot sever": Address by Colonel J. C. Broadhead, in "Addresses by the Members of the St. Louis Bar on the Death of Edward Bates," Bates Papers, MoSHi.

impeachment trial...resting with the Democrats: Blue, Salmon P. Chase, p. 285.

Kate serving...derailed his ambitions: Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. II, ed. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929; 1958), p. 33.

switched his allegiance...to Horace Greeley: Niven, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 44748.

physical condition weakened...depression: Ibid., pp. 444, 44849.

"too much of an invalid...I were dead": SPC to Richard C. Parsons, May 5, 1873, Chase Papers, Vol. V, p. 370.

Kate saw her marriage...died in poverty: Belden and Belden, So Fell the Angels, pp. 29798, 30610, 320, 32627, 348.

Frank Blair...intemperate denunciations: Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. I, ed. Allen Johnson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927; 1964), pp. 33334.

died from a fall: NYT, July 10, 1875.

"his physical vigor...of disposition": Sun, Baltimore, Md., October 19, 1876.

Montgomery served...biography of Andrew Jackson: Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. I (1964 edn.), p. 340.

wrote a series..."herculean tasks": Niven, Gideon Welles, pp. 57677 (quote p. 576).

perceptive diary...streptococcus infection: Ibid., pp. 578, 580.

remained friends...abridged version: Nicolay, Lincoln's Secretary, pp. 301, 342.

Shortly before he died..."overpowering melancholy": William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1929), pp. 405, 407.

"each morning...as an impossibility": MTL to EBL, August 25, 1865, in Turner and Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln, p. 268.

"precious Tad...gladly welcome death": MTL to Alexander Williamson, [May 26, 1867], in ibid., p. 422.

Tad journeyed..."beyond his years": NYTrib, July 17, 1871.

"compression of the heart": Turner and Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln, p. 585.

"The modest and cordial...fantastic enterprises": NYTrib, July 17, 1871.

"It is very hard...to the contrary": Robert Todd Lincoln to Mary Harlan, quoted in Helm, The True Story of Mary, p. 267.

erratic behavior...permanently estranged: Randall, Mary Lincoln, pp. 43034.

virtual recluse...fulfilled at last: Ibid., pp. 44243.

ILl.u.s.tRATION CREDITS

Numbers in roman type refer to ill.u.s.trations in the inserts; numbers in italics refer to book pages.

Chicago Historical Society.Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum.Courtesy of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library.Seward House, Auburn, New York.From the collection of Louise Taper.Ohio Historical Society.The Saint Louis Art Museum.Library of Congress: front endpapers, back endpapers.Missouri Historical Society.Picture History.Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.Brown University Library.United States Army Military History Inst.i.tute.National Archives.Courtesy of J. Wayne Lee.National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Inst.i.tution / Art Resource, New York.Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.Civil War Collection, Eastern Kentucky University Archives, Richmond, Kentucky.White House Historical a.s.sociation (White House Collection).

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time. She is also the author of the bestselling Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She lives in Concord, Ma.s.sachusetts, with her husband, Richard Goodwin.

Photographic Insert

Abraham Lincoln photographed at age forty-eight in Chicago on February 28, 1857. The lawyer's political star had begun to rise at last. A year later, accepting his party's nomination for U.S. senator, he would utter the famous words "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Mary Todd Lincoln, shown here at twenty-eight, after four years of marriage. Upon their first meeting, Lincoln told Mary: "I want to dance with you in the worst way." And, Mary laughingly told her cousin later that night, "he certainly did."

The Lincolns were indulgent parents, believing that "love is the chain whereby to lock a child to its parent." Robert was the eldest (3), followed by Willie (4) and Tad (5). Another son, Eddie, died of tuberculosis in 1850 at the age of three.

When William H. Seward, shown here at age forty-three (6), married Frances Miller (7), the daughter of a wealthy judge, in 1824, he acquired wealth, professional connections, and the stately mansion in Auburn, New York (8), that would become his lifelong home.

Possessed of a powerful intellect and strong moral convictions, Frances Seward (9) served as her husband's political conscience. Young f.a.n.n.y Seward, shown with her father, adored her mother but idolized her father, thinking him one of the greatest men in the country.

"A vale of misery" descended upon Salmon P. Chase (11 and 13) after he lost three wives, including Catherine (12) and Sarah Bella (13), in slightly over a decade.

Chase thereafter sought companionship with political friends such as Edwin M. Stanton (14), whose own life had been marred by family tragedy. Only when he became governor of Ohio did Chase settle into a home of his own in Columbus (15).

Julia Bates (16 and 18) provided Edward Bates (17) with what their friends uniformly described as an ideal home life. Through four decades of married life and the birth of seventeen children their intimacy remained strong.

In the 1850s, Northern sentiment was inflamed by the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, with its disturbing scenes of slavery's violence (19), and by the landmark Dred Scott decision. Scott (20) had sued for his freedom, but the Supreme Court, led by Roger B. Taney (21), decreed that he "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Lincoln's gift for making and keeping friends, such as Joshua Speed (22) and David Davis (23), played a critical role in both his personal happiness and professional advancement.

Lincoln forged lasting friendships while riding the "circuit" with fellow lawyers, including William Herndon (24) and Ward Lamon (25). In these convivial settings (26), Lincoln's never-ending stream of stories made him the center of attention, while he, in turn, gained firsthand knowledge of the voters throughout Illinois.

Neither Lyman Trumbull (27) nor Norman Judd (28) would ever forget Lincoln's magnanimity when conceding defeat in his 1855 bid for the Senate. Both men would help Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago (29).

Thurlow Weed (31) failed to win the Republican nomination for his protege, William Seward. An act of betrayal by Horace Greeley (30), who bore an old political grudge against Seward, contributed to the defeat. Editorial humor of the day cast Seward in the role of an a.s.sa.s.sinated Julius Caesar and depicted Greeley as a vengeful Brutus (32).