Six o'clock on a cold February morning. Three suspicious characters step warily from a train at a rundown American railway depot. The tallest, a man of 52, has a slouch hat pulled down over his eyes, so that other passengers can see nothing of his face except for a strong nose and high yellow cheekbones above his upturned coat-collar: they cannot even see the newly-grown black beard of this wanted man, looking now so different from his pictures on the walls and hoardings, pictures that make him a target for killers. This is Abraham Lincoln, the newly-elected President, come to Washington to take over from Buchanan and become a warlord.

LRB 4 October 1984 | PDF Download