About the Author

Harold Holzer is one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. He has published over thirty books, including 'The New York Times' Complete Civil War (Black Dog and Leventhal), and is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the Lincoln Prize and the National Humanities Medal. He lectures widely, appears on television frequently, and has written for the New York Times, American Heritage, and America's Civil War. Most recently he served as co-chair of the United States Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and is senior vice president for external affairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Find him online at www.haroldholzer.com.Craig Symonds is a distinguished historian of the American Civil War and a retired professor and chairman of the history department at the United States Naval Academy. He is the author of 11 books including Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battlesthat Shaped American History, which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in 2006, and Lincoln and His Admirals, which won the 2009 Lincoln Prize. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland.