Lincoln’s last days have been the subject of more extensive hagiography than for any other president, so it is tempting to dismiss Mr Achorn’s book, which focuses on the inauguration, as redundant. That would be a mistake. Its strength lies less in the events themselves than in the elaborate detail and rich historical context that he musters. Spring thunderstorms turn the parade route into a muddy quagmire that swallows shoes and ruins dresses. John Wilkes Booth relies on the father of his teenage mistress, a New England senator, for vip passes to both the inauguration and Ford’s Theatre, giving the murderer more than one chance to get to his victim ... As in some of the plays performed in Ford’s Theatre, minor roles sometimes eclipse major ones in this fascinating account. By the end, as well as mourning Lincoln’s fate, American readers might wish for another chance at politics without malice and with charity to all.
Today, Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman and John Wilkes Booth have become more symbols than human beings. But in Every Drop of Blood, they are living people, crammed in corridors and parlors and conniving and gossiping at parties ... While its backdrop is a monumental event, the book never loses sight of the people whose stories it tells ... Washington, D.C., itself is a character, grand with its new domed Capitol and at the same time vulgar, with a canal of stinking sewage nearby. Achorn knows the city so well that even the statues have stories he can tell ... Achorn is clearly a longtime student of the era. The bibliography is 16 pages long, and the book reflects that level of scholarship. So many of the characters we meet are quoted exactly from letters and diaries. Original sourcing not only provides credibility, it lets us hear these people in their own voices, not transcribed or filtered through a 21st-century sensibility ... a good read in our own era, reminding us that no matter how badly divided we feel now, as a nation we’ve been through worse. It reminds us that even in those terrible times, our country produced an underestimated man who was able to rise above them. And it offers hope that another underestimated leader among us now may be able to do the same
Achorn gives us is a lively guided tour of Washington during the 24 hours or so around Lincoln’s swearing-in ... Achorn...has a journalist’s gift for finding just the right quotation. He deftly fishes memorable descriptions—often less-than-flattering ones—out of 19th-century newspapers and diaries, especially as he introduces the most distinguished residents of the nation’s capital ... Despite Achorn’s sharp eye for such immersive details, his big-picture narration offers little that is new or surprising. Readers unfamiliar with this much-chronicled period of history will probably appreciate his skill in depicting a pivotal city at a pivotal moment. But anyone who has read even one or two of the many, many other good books on Civil War-era Washington might end up skimming through his workmanlike accounts ... The pace sometimes drags as Achorn stretches out this single day over the entire book, frequently interrupting his flow with digressions, explanations and flashbacks.
... [a] richly detailed history ... While vividly recounting the inauguration itself, Every Drop of Blood doubles as a selective history of the entire era that Lincoln’s speech helped define. Each chapter advances the story chronologically, from the evening before the inauguration to the evening after. But within each chapter, the narrative ranges widely in place and time to describe earlier events in the war and in the lives of those affected by it. The effect can be somewhat disorienting. Perhaps this small vice is the necessary price of the book’s considerable virtues. In elegant, episodic detail, Mr. Achorn captures both the immediate experiences of those who attended the inaugural and the recent memories that colored everything they saw and felt, heard and said.
... a masterful narrative of the day, weaving together a cast of characters and events in a compelling work that reads like hands-on reportage from a writer who was on the scene. Achorn magnifies his writing with fresh research, including personal recollections by eyewitnesses and newspaper accounts of the day ... filled with remarkable personalities and figures who dwell on the periphery of the inauguration ... Achorn’s work is as epic as the topic deserves. His research is remarkable, telling the wider story through minute details and moments of deep meaning ... a welcome addition to the voluminous canon of Lincoln books. Through these pages Achorn transforms readers into spectators of history as it unfolds.
Achorn delivers a fascinating account of an address which entered the national consciousness ... Achorn has done Lincoln justice, distilling the essence of the speech in a reflection Lincoln would have understood.
Achorn combines this collective biography with a suspense tale involving Booth, who was there to kill Lincoln. Although we know Booth was unsuccessful at that point, Achorn re-creates the scene in a way that generates considerable tension. Mixed in is much Civil War history, including stomach-turning descriptions of the treatment of prisoners, civilians, and soldiers. The mud- and waste-filled city of Washington is described accurately, if also nauseatingly ... Hovering over all is the melancholy presence of Lincoln himself, of whom Achorn provides a rich, heavily psychological portrait. The inauguration speech itself, reprinted in the appendix, is oddly religious (for the freethinking Lincoln) and conciliatory, though that feeling, as Achorn makes clear, was not shared by everyone. A moving chronicle of the country on the eve of assassination.
The author provides rich description of a wide cast of people, including politicians, poets, soldiers, and nurses ... Achorn is especially insightful in setting the scene for the inaugural, going deep inside the social world of the capital and remarking on the constant positioning for favor or notice. His revealing exegesis of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural (shortly before his assassination), as a prayer and sermon more than an address, shows how Lincoln’s understanding of scripture informed his reading of the meaning of the Civil War and the nation’s obligations from it ... Although Achorn doesn’t offer new interpretations of Lincoln or his speech, he does, however, provide the fullest accounting of the inauguration experience. A solid history that will allow readers to feel as if they are in the moment.
Achorn meticulously chronicles President Lincoln’s March 1865 inauguration in this kaleidoscopic history. Drawing from diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspaper reports, Achorn frames a poignant yet familiar portrait of Lincoln with the accounts of several historical figures who converged in Washington, D.C., for the inaugural address ... Though Achorn covers well-trod ground, he skillfully plumbs his sources for colorful details and draws memorable character sketches. History buffs will savor this evocative narrative.
