Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary

"When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton took over the immediate task of running the government in the final throes of the Civil War. Lincoln would not have been surprised, knowing as he did the complex and driven man who was the workhorse of his Cabinet. Here, biographer Walter Stahr details the grief, ambition and struggle that formed this Ohio river town lad who became perhaps the first Washington power lawyer. One Union general called him “the vilest man I ever knew,” but Lincoln gave him enormous credit for winning the war."