Showcasing original and previously unpublished photographs collected and preserved by Mary Todd Lincoln and four generations of descendants, the volume includes pictures displayed in a family album when the Lincolns lived in the White House. Chronicled are the lives of the Lincolns’ three sons, including the tragic death of Willie in 1862, the rapid change of Tad during the war, and Robert’s marriage, children, and political career. Soldiers and statesmen of the Civil War, period figures such as Tom Thumb and Henry Ward Beecher, and even the family dog also graced the album that became the nucleus of the Lincolns’ personal collection.This updated edition, which provides both additional pictures and new introductory materials by renowned Lincoln scholars Mark E. Neely Jr. and Harold Holzer, paints a portrait of the Lincolns’ rise to prominence and the exclusion of poorer relations after the family moved to the nation’s capital. With 150 illustrations and detailed captions, this authoritative and enlightening nineteenth-century history also includes capsule biographies of the Lincolns’ friends and relatives.In such images as the First Lady in mourning or the assassin John Wilkes Booth, the pictures cannot disguise the painful truth about a family that suffered as many tragedies as triumphs. Willie’s death at the age of eleven abruptly ended Mary and Abraham’s personal collecting, but Lincoln descendants continued the tradition. The last pages of The Lincoln Family Album conclude with the death of Robert Lincoln’s last grandchild, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, in 1985, ending the direct line of Abraham and Mary Lincoln.

    Through the years historians have placed him at both ends of the spectrum: some have portrayed him as a hero, others have judged him incompetent.In Jefferson Davis and His Generals, Steven Woodworth shows that both extremes are accurate--Davis was both heroic and incompetent. Yet neither viewpoint reveals the whole truth about this complicated figure. Woodworth's portrait of Davis reveals an experienced, talented, and courageous leader who, nevertheless, undermined the Confederacy's cause in the trans-Appalachian west, where the South lost the war.At the war's outbreak, few Southerners seemed better qualified for the post of commander-in-chief. Davis had graduated from West Point, commanded a combat regiment in the Mexican War (which neither Lee nor Grant could boast), and performed admirably as U.S. Senator and Secretary of War. Despite his credentials, Woodworth argues, Davis proved too indecisive and inconsistent as commander-in-chief to lead his new nation to victory.As Woodworth shows, however, Davis does not bear the sole responsibility for the South's defeat. A substantial part of that burden rests with Davis's western generals. Bragg, Beauregard, Van Dorn, Pemberton, Polk, Buckner, Hood, Forrest, Morgan, and the Johnstons (Albert and Joseph) were a proud, contentious, and uneven lot. Few could be classed with the likes of a Lee or a Jackson in the east. Woodworth assesses their relations with Davis, as well as their leadership on and off the battlefields at Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Atlanta, to demonstrate their complicity in the Confederacy's demise.Extensive research in the marvelously rich holdings of the Jefferson Davis Association at Rice University enriches Woodworth's study. He provides superb analyses of western military operations, as well as some stranger-than-fiction tales: Van Dorn's shocking death, John Hood and Sally Preston's bizarre romance, Gideon Pillow's undignified antics, and Franklin Cheatham's drunken battlefield behavior. Most important, he has avoided the twin temptations to glorify or castigate Davis and thus restored balance to the evaluation of his leadership during the Civil War."A long-awaited work on an important topic--a counterpart for T. Harry Williams's celebrated Lincoln and His Generals. Experts in the field will have to take Woodworth into account. He writes well--in a good, clear style that should appeal to a wide audience. I found many passages to be pure pleasure to read. . . . The really exciting thing, though, is his insightful series of conclusions."--Herman Hattaway, author of How the North Won."Highly readable, stimulating, and at times even provocative. This fast-paced and compelling narrative provides a very effective overview of Confederate command problems in the West."--Albert Castel, author of General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West.