| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Lincoln's Rail-Splitter: Governor Richard J. Oglesby. By Mark A. Plummer. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. xvi, 245 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-252-02649-7.)

Writing a biography of an individual who lived in a time dominated by a greater personality presents a difficult task for historians. The temptation is strong to use the more famous personality as a reference point for evaluating the significance of the lesser-known individual. Succumbing to the temptation, however, often restricts the historical insights that could otherwise have been gained. Mark A. Plummer's biography of Richard J. Oglesby, an Illinois politician whose career spanned the nineteenth century, is a case in point. The historical colossus of Abraham Lincoln casts such a giant shadow in Illinois that the temptation to judge Oglesby's significance by the degree of his interactions with Lincoln is difficult to resist. Plummer struggles valiantly to avoid this temptation. Unfortunately, he is not always successful, which detracts from this otherwise solid biography. . . .

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