Overview

Kenneth W. Noe's Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend boldly questions the long-accepted notion that the sixteenth president was an almost-perfect commander in chief, more intelligent than his generals. The legend originated with Lincoln himself, who early in the war concluded that he possessed a keen strategic and tactical mind. Noe explores the genesis of this powerful idea and asks why so many have tenaciously defended it. George McClellan, Lincoln's top general, emerged in Lincoln's mind and the American psyche as his chief adversary, and to this day, the Lincoln-McClellan relationship remains central to the enduring legend. Lincoln came to view himself as a wiser warrior than McClellan, and as the war proceeded, a few members of Lincoln's inner circle began to echo the president's thoughts on his military prowess. Convinced of his own tactical brilliance, Lincoln demanded that Ulysses Grant, McClellan's replacement, turn to the ""hard, tough fighting"" of the Overland and Petersburg campaigns, when Grant's first instinct was to copy McClellan and swing into the Confederate rear. Noe suggests that the growth and solidification of the heroic legend began with Lincoln's assassination; it debuted in print only months afterward and was so cloaked in religious piety that for decades it could not withstand the counternarratives offered by secular contemporaries. Although the legend was debated and neglected at times, it reemerged in interwar Great Britain and gained canonical status in the 1950s Cold War era and during the Civil War Centennial of the 1960s. Historians became torchbearers of the heroic legend and much else that we know about Lincoln, reorienting his biography forever. Based on lessons and language from the world wars, their arguments were so timely and powerful that they seized the field. Since then, biographers and historians have reevaluated many aspects of Lincoln's life, but have rarely revisited his performance as commander in chief. Noe's reappraisal is long overdue.

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Reviews

""Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend offers a fascinating narrative of how generations of writers and historians evaluated the sixteenth president's reputation as commander in chief during the Civil War. Noe suggests that the admiring and uncritical depiction of Lincoln's grasp of the military arts, which still largely prevails today, might be worthy of a more critical appraisal."" - Joan Waugh, author of U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth ""In Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, Kenneth W. Noe offers a sophisticated and probing analysis of Abraham Lincoln as a wartime commander in chief. He then presents a richly detailed account of how Lincoln's contemporaries and later historians helped create the idea that Lincoln, the untutored amateur, turned into a military genius far superior to even his best generals. This forcefully argued work is a major contribution to our understanding of the evolution of Civil War military history."" - George C. Rable, author of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War ""Kenneth W. Noe calls for spirited debate regarding Lincoln's actions as commander in chief, and in Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, he delivers exactly that! Exploring history, historiography, memory, myth, and legend, Noe's account is sure to stimulate lively discussion among scholars and enthusiasts about Lincoln's wartime presidency."" - Jonathan W. White, Lincoln Prize–winning author of A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House ""This masterful summary of the literature on Abraham Lincoln as war chieftain is an essential contribution to the canon of Lincoln studies. It is a clarion call for an extensive reevaluation of Lincoln as commander in chief."" - Frank J. Wetta, coauthor of Abraham Lincoln and Women in Film: One Hundred Years of Hollywood Mythmaking ""In Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, Civil War historian Ken Noe boldly disputes the historiography that defines Lincoln as a great military genius above all his generals, especially McClellan. With a complex and fascinating analysis, Noe describes the processes by which historians and the public seek to canonize Lincoln. This dazzling examination of the interplay of legends and myth will surely generate much deliberation."" - Orville Vernon Burton, coeditor of Lincoln's Unfinished Work: The New Birth of Freedom from Generation to Generation

Author Information

Kenneth W. Noe is the Draughon Professor of Southern History Emeritus at Auburn University. He is most recently the author of The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War.

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