Stephen D. Engle's "Gathering to Save a Nation"

Stephen D. Engle is professor of history at Florida Atlantic University and director of the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln and the Union's War Governors, and reported the following:

Yes, page 99 is representative of my book as it reveals how governors contributed to the northern leviathan that emerged early in the war. Governors took steps to not only prosecute the war, but also to stay in line with Lincoln’s limited war aims to achieve the ultimate goal of preserving the Union. They used their legislative messages and their private and public correspondence with offices, congressmen, soldiers, and civilians to explain the war as a contest to rescue the Union from dissolution. Indeed, the war provided northern governors the opportunity to demonstrate that states had more rights in the Union than outside of it. Gathering to Save a Nation examines how the Federal Union worked during the nation's greatest crisis and reveals just how powerful the alliance was between Lincoln and his statesmen.

Learn more about Gathering to Save a Nation at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: Gathering to Save a Nation.

Writers Read: Stephen D. Engle.

--Marshal Zeringue