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The War That Emancipated One President and Enslaved Another

Among the best parts of Nigel Hamilton’s book are passages about presidential wives who knew far better than their husbands what was wanted in politics and on the battlefield.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The 16th American president, Abraham Lincoln. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents’
By Nigel Hamilton
Little, Brown and Company, 800 pages

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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