Lincoln by Gore Vidal: book review

Lincoln: A Novel (1984) commences with Abraham Lincoln’s “secret” arrival in Washington DC as President-elect on February 23, 1861 for his move into the Executive Mansion—the White House—before his official inauguration as America’s 16^th president.

With support from the North, Lincoln was elected in November 1860. The southern states (the Confederacy) declared their secession from the Union, and it was Lincoln’s goal to defend and reinstate the Union. Vidal’s novel describes Lincoln’s leadership to take control of the border states at the start of the Civil War and to re-unite the North and South, eventually succeeding in 1865 through the efforts of General Ulysses S. Grant. 

The prolific author, Vidal, states in the Afterword that the novel is based on fact, reconstructed from letters, journals, newspapers and diaries. He writes of the lawyer and Republican that he was lean, angular, long-legged, arthritic, who never ate enough and never slept enough.

While Lincoln—Honest Abe, the Tycoon, and the Ancient (all descriptions of the president)—concerned himself with the war, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln—who called him Father—was on a spending spree renovating their home. Rumours spread of her extravagant vision, and of how she nearly did not become Mrs. Lincoln when Lincoln called off the wedding. Eighteen months later, he had “bad judgment” to marry her to “move up in the world,” so it was said. But now, with his sons and his move to the White House, Vidal quotes Lincoln saying “Mrs. Lincoln is the flag. I’m just the flagpole."

Vidal describes the many plots against Lincoln’s life, such as the 1862 gunshots that knocked his hat from his head while riding alone at night, and the second time in 1864 under similar circumstances. He was rarely without his bodyguard, and roamed the streets freely.

Toward the end of Lincoln’s first term in office, speculation arose that if he lived, he was bound to be re-elected and the war would continue on and on until the Yankees won. If Lincoln was not a candidate for the 1864 election, then the Democrat George B. McClellan would win and make peace on Confederacy terms.

The first mention of John Wilkes Booth—who eventually shot and killed Lincoln—is of a handsome man with dark, curly hair, “storm-tossed, romantically, like Lord Byron’s” as he acted in The Pearl of Savoy at the Grover’s Theatre. He was described as “the youngest star in the world.” Vidal describes Lincoln’s love of the theatre and his devotion to attending plays in Washington.

On Tuesday November 8, 1864, Lincoln won the election and a second term in office. On his inauguration on March 4, 1865, John Wilkes Booth has a clear aim as Lincoln gave his winning speech. But nothing occurs.

The 2012 film, Lincoln, by Steven Spielberg, commences after Lincoln’s re-election in 1864, depicting the last four months of the president’s leadership during the Civil War as the North heads for an inevitable victory. The focus is on Lincoln’s push for a constitutional amendment to end slavery across all of America—and the congressional debate over the 13^th Amendment.

In Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Lincoln, for which he won an Oscar, his mannerisms were mesmerizing, but it was the voice that drew the most attention. Was it authentic? Spielberg optioned the rights to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals (2005), and the screenplay was adapted by playwright Tony Kushner. In Vidal’s 1984 book, he writes of the famous Gettysburg address on November 19, 1863, “Lincoln’s voice was like the sound that accompanies a sudden crack of summer lightning” and “how had he accomplished this bit of magic with his singularly unmellifluous voice and harsh Midwestern accent?” that changed from a “trumpet-voice” to “that of a cavalry bugle calling for a charge.”

Vidal describes the assassination by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate spy, on April 14, 1865 at the Ford’s Theatre as Lincoln and his wife watched Our American Cousin. Lincoln’s bodyguard had left the theatre during intermission—without returning—and Booth fired a single shot to the back of the president’s head. Taken across the street, Lincoln died in a small bedroom of a “cabbage-scented boarding house.” President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the next president, and Booth was killed in a Virginian barn after 10 days on the run.

Vidal’s immense tome presents the White House years of Abraham Lincoln, in detail, and with a turn of phrase that brings Lincoln to life on the page, as much as Daniel Day-Lewis does on the screen.