Lincoln’s Fiercest Rival & Closest Ally

After a short biography of Lincoln, how about a long biography of Seward?  Worry not – the page to which I’ve linked below is just a 5 minute NPR interview with the biographer, who gives some nice bullet-point answers to the host’s general questions.

Not only does he sort of come to respect Lincoln as a leader, but the two of them become close friends, much to the chagrin of some of Seward’s Cabinet colleagues. The Cabinet would be gathered for a meeting and who would show up but the president and Secretary Seward would walk through the door together sharing a joke, and the others would know that whatever they were about to discuss had more or less had been decided a few minutes earlier by Lincoln and Seward.

via How Lincoln’s Fiercest Rival Became His Close Ally : NPR.

New Seward Biography

There’s a new biography of William H. Seward, and it sounds excellent. Seward is presented in a heroic trajectory from snooty jerk to warm, winning statesman. Much as Team of Rivals gave an extensive biography of Seward to the night of his assassination, Kearns Goodwin ends his story with the death of Lincoln. I’m looking forward to learning how he contributed to the country in the post-bellum years.

Walter Stahr’s biography of Lincoln’s Secretary of State, "Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man," takes a while to attract. Though Seward was personally energetic, though he fully documented his own life with letters and dispatches from his political career, Stahr proceeds cautiously, as if he were Lincoln’s slowpoke General George B. McClellan assembling his myriads of troops but rarely advancing. In Stahr’s defense, William Henry Seward (1801-1872) is and was not, from a distance, easy to like or admire. Once we know him, however, just as it happened with his contemporaries, his depth and high spirits win us over; he sparkles, pleases, and charms. A sharp politician of great skill, always clever, never resentful, Seward, through persistent compromising, before, during and after the Civil War helped steer the United States forward.

via New biography of man who purchased Alaska for $7.2 million in 1867 | Alaska Dispatch.