At the beginning of 1864, the Civil War was far from won; terrible and bloody Union setbacks and casualties lay ahead. Abraham Lincoln was facing a re-election battle as some northern Democrats were ready to start peace talks that could leave the Confederacy a separate slaveholding American nation and as his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, challenged him for the Republican nomination. But by the end of the year, the war's end was in sight, and slavery was on the verge of extinction.
Despite all the turmoil of war and political infighting, Lincoln also set the stage for a new era of westward expansion. He shaped the decades to come through laws and subsidies that propelled railroads westward, by the Homestead Act that offered western lands to immigrant farmers and by the Act to Encourage Immigration that enabled 615,000 men, women, and children to arrive in America during the Civil War.
As the year ended, John Wilkes Booth, who stalked Lincoln throughout 1864, was only a few weeks away from assassinating our greatest president.
Letters, telegrams, and military maneuvers are the focus of this Civil War history, which recounts Lincoln's presidential administration day by day in the year 1864. Mel Foster narrates in a flat tone, barely differentiating between speakers and events. Describing some of the bloodiest action of the war, he keeps his voice steady and even, a style that does not engaging emotionally with the events. Foster's narration may disappoint listeners who prefer more drama, especially in a story of war. Listeners will learn about the politics and military strategies of the last year of the war, as well as all the matters great and small that held Lincoln's attention. Yet Foster's reading does not draw listeners into the emotional aspects of that year. M.B.K. 2010 Audies Finalist (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
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