Lincoln's Lie
A True Civil War Caper Through Fake News, Wall Street, and the White House
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This “delicious, suspenseful . . . and cleverly written romp through a dramatic and forgotten moment in American history” reveals how Lincoln manipulated the media during the Civil War—shining new light on the current ‘fake news’ crisis (Elizabeth Gilbert)
In 1864, during the bloodiest days of the Civil War, two newspapers published a call, allegedly authored by President Lincoln, for the immediate conscription of 400,000 more Union soldiers. New York streets erupted in pandemonium. Wall Street markets went wild.
When Lincoln sent troops to seize the newspaper presses and arrest the editors, it became clear: The proclamation was a lie. Who put out this fake news? Was it a Confederate spy hoping to incite another draft riot? A political enemy out to ruin the president in an election year? Or was there some truth to the proclamation—far more truth than anyone suspected?
Unpacking this overlooked historical mystery for the first time, journalist Elizabeth Mitchell takes readers on a dramatic journey from newspaper offices filled with heroes and charlatans to the haunted White House confinement of Mary Todd Lincoln, from the packed pews of the celebrated preacher Reverend Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church to the War Department offices in the nation’s capital and a Grand Jury trial.
In Lincoln’s Lie, Mitchell brings to life the remarkable story of the manipulators of the news and why they decided to play such a dangerous game during a critical period of American history. Her account of Lincoln’s troubled relationship to the press and its role in the Civil War is one that speaks powerfully to our current political crises: fake news, profiteering, Constitutional conflict, and a president at war with the press.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Mitchell (Liberty's Torch) delivers a dramatic retelling of a Civil War era mystery. In May 1864, less than a year after President Lincoln's first compulsory draft sparked riots in New York City, two local newspapers printed a proclamation, signed by Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, threatening a new draft unless 400,000 volunteers signed up for the Union Army immediately. Lincoln, Seward, and Secretary of War Henry Stanton declared the announcement a hoax and sent troops to halt publication at the newspapers and seize telegraph company communications in search of the culprits. Journalist Joseph Howard soon confessed to the crime as part of a stock- and gold-market manipulation scheme, though he later claimed it was only a practical joke. Rumors circulated, however, that Lincoln had actually drafted a similar proclamation (he made an official call for 500,000 additional troops just two months later), and that it had been leaked to Howard by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who was hoping for a financial windfall to pay off her debts. Mitchell offers plenty of circumstantial evidence in support of the latter theory, and paints a colorful portrait of the rough-and-tumble worlds of 19th-century journalism, politics, and finance. This well-researched account turns a historical footnote into an entertaining whodunit.
