His presence and his leadership inspired his contemporaries; his life story will do the same for generations to come.

Michael Burlingame (MYSTIC, CT) is Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. He is the author or editor of several books about Lincoln, including Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks; The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality; and An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd. Jonathan W. White (NEWPORT NEWS, VA) is an associate professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University. He has written and edited more than a dozen books on the Civil War era, including A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House.