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Reviews
| Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President. Ed. Harold Holzer (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 388. Illus., notes, index. Paper, $24.95)The Lincoln Mailbag: America Writes to the President, 1861–1865. Ed. Harold Holzer (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, [2006]. Pp. xl, 244. Illus., notes, index. Paper, $22.95)
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Though the titles are somewhat different, these may now be regarded as one work in two volumes. As Harold Holzer explains in his introduction to The Lincoln Mailbag, he did not originally plan it that way. In 1993, he published Dear Mr. Lincoln with Addison-Wesley, assuming it would stand alone. Almost immediately afterwards he began hearing from people who had or knew about other letters to Lincoln which deserved publication. Furthermore, inspired by the work of Ira Berlin on African American soldiers in the Civil War, Holzer determined to dispense with one of his original criteria: that Lincoln himself saw, or at least might have seen, the letters being published. Lincoln's secretaries forwarded without opening the vast majority of letters from black soldiers and sailors; Lincoln's Mailbag offers a valuable sampling of them. It originally appeared, clothbound, in 1998. Both books met with widespread praise. The letters include some from famous contemporaries, but most are from men and occasionally women we are likely never to have encountered before. Some are barely intelligible because of irregular spelling and erratic grammar, while others reflect the polished literacy of Victorian America. Taken together they are a valuable source for the study of public opinion. |
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Dear Mr. Lincoln begins with Holzer's forty-one page introduction, which describes the layout of the president's offices and describes the secretaries who handled the president's mail. They determined what he should see, what should be redirected to other officers of the government, and what should be thrown away. For The Lincoln Mailbag this subject is covered again, but in less detail. Holzer divides Dear Mr. Lincoln into ten chapters, each containing letters of a certain type. The titles succinctly describe their contents: Advice and Instruction, Requests and Demands, Compliments and Congratulations, Complaints and Criticism, Inventions and Innovations, Gifts and Honors, Official Business, Presidential Invitations, Family Matters, and Threats and Warnings. For each chapter Holzer provides a lively introduction, often indicating which of its letters are especially interesting. |
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The Lincoln Mailbag uses a simpler organization. Following the introduction, there are five chapters, one for each year, 1861 through 1865, and each headed by a picture of Lincoln taken in that year. Within the chapters, letters of whatever kind are presented in chronological order. In both volumes, Holzer supplies remarks, sometimes no more than a sentence, but sometimes a full paragraph. Both volumes have interesting illustrations, mostly contemporary photographs. The Lincoln Mailbag has, as already hinted, more photographs of Lincoln himself, and larger, finer photographs of his principal secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. There is also, on its front cover, an image of one of the most poignant letters in either collection, from a woman in Kentucky:
"Mr. president
It is my Desire to be free.... you will please let me know if we are free.
Annie Davis August 25, 1864"
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