The English Speaking Union of Boston
The Oxford & Cambridge Society of New England
The Union Club of Boston
Proudly Present
Acclaimed Historian and Author
Nigel Hamilton
Speaking on his Latest Book
Lincoln vs Davis
“This outstanding double biography brings the dueling leaders vividly to life.”
The Union Club of Boston
- Andrew M. Mayer, Washington Independent Review of Books
8 Park Street
Boston MA 02108
Tuesday, June 17 2025
6:00 P.M: Reception
6:30 P.M: Dinner
Followed by Mr Hamilton’s Presentation
Tickets cost $85 and include hearty hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and 4-course dinner. Please register by June 10
The Union Club is accessible using the Park Street MBTA station Green and Red Lines. Parking is available at the Boston Common Garage, 0 Charles Street. The Garage is directly across the street from the Public Garden. Please use the pedestrian exit marked for “State House.”
Book Description
Of all the books written on Abraham Lincoln, there has been one surprising gap: the drama of how the “railsplitter” from Illinois grew into his critical role as U.S. commander-in-chief, and managed to outwit his formidable opponent, Jefferson Davis, in what remains history’s only military faceoff between rival American presidents.
Davis was a trained soldier and war hero; Lincoln a country lawyer who had only briefly served in the militia. Confronted with the most violent and challenging war ever seen on American soil, Lincoln seemed ill-suited to the task: inexperienced, indecisive, and a poor judge of people’s motives, he allowed his administration’s war policies to be sabotaged by fickle, faithless cabinet officials while entrusting command of his army to a preening young officer named George McClellan – whose defeat in battle left Washington, the nation’s capital, at the mercy of General Robert E. Lee, Davis’s star performer.
Photo credit: Frank Monkiewicz
About the Author
Historian Nigel Hamilton is a New York Times best-selling biographer of General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery, President John F. Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among other subjects. He has won multiple awards, including the Whitbread Prize and the Templer Medal for Military History. The first volume of his FDR a War trilogy, The Mantle of Command, was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a senior fellow at the McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts Boston, and splits his time between Boston, Massachusetts, and New Orleans, Louisiana.