The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot
The Fort Stevens Story
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- $39.99
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- $39.99
Publisher Description
The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot: The Fort Stevens Story recounts the story of President Abraham Lincoln’s role in the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864. This engagement stands apart in American history as the only time a sitting American president came under enemy fire while in office. In this new study of this overlooked moment in American history, Cooling poses a troubling question: What if Lincoln had been shot and killed during this short battle, nine months prior to his death by John Wilkes Booth’s hand in Ford's Theater? A potential pivotal moment in the Civil War, the Battle of Fort Stevens could have changed—with Lincoln's demise—the course of American history.
The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot, however, is more than a meditation on an alternate history of the United States. It is also a close study of the attempt by Confederate general Jubal Early to capture Washington, DC, to remove Lincoln and the Union government from power, and to turn the tide of the Civil War in the South's favor. The dramatic events of this attempt to capture Washington—and the president with it—unfold in stunning detail as Cooling taps fresh documentary sources and offers a new interpretation of this story of the defense of the nation’s capital. Commemorating this largely forgotten and under-appreciated chapter in the study of Lincoln and the Civil War, The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot is a fascinating look at this potential turning point in American history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In July 1864, President Lincoln visited a besieged fort on the edge of the nation's capital and, according to Cooling (coauthor of Mr. Lincoln's Forts), put his life and along with it, the emancipatory goal of the war at risk. It's old news that Lincoln walked away without a scratch (though he was dead nine months later), but this is nevertheless a fresh history. Cooling sets the stage by explaining Washington, D.C.'s importance in the war, as well as the Union's struggles with a surging Rebel offensive and Lincoln's surprising level of engagement with his army. Confederate leaders saw an attack on Fort Stevens as a critical step toward capturing the capital, and they recruited tough troops for the task. But Lincoln shored up the resistance, and toured the fort on two days, despite the fact that his towering frame made an easy target for sharpshooters. While Cooling makes much of what might have happened to the war effort had Lincoln been wounded or killed, he spends most of his time speculating as to why he was there in the first place, and what his presence says about his role as president and commander-in-chief. This is a detailed and skilled account of a faded chapter in the annals of Civil War history that should not be ignored.
