"Linoln's Wrath - Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President's Mission to Destroy the Press"
Lincoln's Wrath tells the untold tale of what happened during the “Summer of Rage” in 1861, when thuggish mobs entered newspaper offices, burning papers and tossing printing presses out of windows.
Army units attacked fellow townsmen, threatening the lives of publishers and their families. Governors, members of Congress, mayors and editors were thrown in jail.
All who faced this wrath shared one thing: they publicly opposed Abraham Lincoln and his policies.
To illustrate the struggle, authors Jeffrey Manber and Neil Dahlstrom introduce publisher John Hodgson, an angry bigot so hated that a local newspaper-in its coverage of the fall of Fort Sumner, the opening battle of the Civil War-gleefully reported his defeat in a bar fight.
Civil War historians Manber and Dahlstrom unearth decades of research and hundreds of original-source documents to expose how Lincoln manipulated the press.
Hodgson adamantly disagreed with Lincoln and the war, an opinion he expressed vehemently through his newspaper, the Jeffersonian. When his press was destroyed, first by a mob then “upon the authority of the president of the United States,” Hodgson fought back.
After two years of investigation, Hodgson and his lawyers finally argued their case in the Philadelphia Supreme Court. Throughout the trial, one very important and still debated question loomed: how far did the conspiracy against the press go?
To know this answer, Hodgson would risk everything to protect free speech in the United States.
Civil War historians Manber and Dahlstrom unearth decades of research and hundreds of original-source documents to expose how Lincoln manipulated the press. While cunning and brilliant, Lincoln was not always the most humble, honest and upstanding President that history books lead us to believe. Lincoln's Wrath brings to life one of the most gripping, dramatic and unknown stories in U.S. history, one that reminds of us of the Lincoln few know.
ISBN: 1-40220-398-5 · Sourcebooks, Inc · Published: November 15, 2005
Available at bookstores nationwide and amazon.com