The Shadows Rise: Abraham Lincoln and the Ann Rutledge Legend

by Walsh, John Evangelist

• ISBN13: 9780252076299
• ISBN10: 025207629X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-29
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

In recent decades the Ann Rutledge story has been treated as mythical rather than as an account of Abraham Lincoln's first but doomed love affair. InThe Shadows Rise, the first book-length treatment of the subject, John Evangelist Walsh restores Ann Rutledge to her rightful place in the historical record. In 1945 the noted Lincoln scholar James G. Randall stated in his Lincoln biography that no real evidence existed to confirm Lincoln's love for Ann or the tales of his profound grief at her early death. Later, in the 1990s, John Y. Simon and Douglas Wilson began the rehabilitation of Rutledge with a re-examination of Herndon's papers. Now, inThe Shadows RiseWalsh transcends and transforms recent research, re-creating the Lincoln-Rutledge story in all its dramatic fullness and depth. Along with new material and new interpretations he supplies some old-fashioned common sense. Highlights include convincing reconstructions of Lincoln's New Salem friends and Walsh's fresh examination of the Mary Owens affair, in which Lincoln's offer of marriage was refused.

Author Biography

John Evangelist Walsh is the author of more than twenty books, including Moonlight: Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial. The winner of an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his book Poe the Detective, Walsh lives in Monroe, Wisconsin.