Introduction

A Lincoln book which says something new is a rarity. Conversations With Lincoln is just such a book. In it Charles M. Segal has collected and presented more than one hundred interviews with Lincoln as President-elect and as President. As a revelation of the intimate, human side of Abraham Lincoln, it will provide endless fascination to every reader interested in the Civil War era. Naturally as historical records they vary widely in quality. Some were recorded almost contemporaneously; others were written long after the event. Mr. Segal's book contains much revealing material upon Lincoln's political dexterity. Accordingly, he realized that they must be handled with special care, and the skill with which he managed the radicals in the cabinet crisis of December, 1862, is the supreme example of the President's political adroitness. That note of compulsion from outside force is a recurrent theme in Conversations With Lincoln.