Need For reads

Fiction No sentimental blather A FRIEND OF MR. LINCOLN By Stephen Harrigan 411 pp. Alfred A. Knopf Reviewed by Marty Carlock It’s 1832, and Micajah Weatherby has just survived a brutal attack on his company by a band of Black Hawk warriors. He is assigned to lead a few soldiers who have come to their aid to the site of the battle to retrieve the bodies of the dead. One introduces himself: “I’m Abraham Lincoln.” He was not as freakishly remarkable in his appearance as it would later become fashionable to recall. Lincoln was exquisitely self-conscious, thought he was ugly, and later reckoned he had no choice but to promote himself as such. But it was his height and strength that marked him in Cage’s mind that day…and something else—the fact that he had introduced himself to Cage when none of the other men had bothered to do so, and the plaintive note of human comradeship in his eyes when Cage returned the handshake. Micajah – Cage – and Lincoln become friends when Lincoln relocates from ...