Part II of Team of Rivals – “Master Among Men” — provides an extensive analysis of Lincoln’s wartime leadership as well as the relationships he had to sustain and nurture in order to be a successful leader. At the outset of his administration, Lincoln had to make a difficult choice over whether to evacuate Fort Sumter or reinforce it. Although he opted to reinforce, a misunderstanding with Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Secretary of State William Seward sent the resupply vessel to Fort Pickens in Florida. Once the war started, Lincoln was frequently called upon to settle disputes between cabinet members even as he searched for a powerful, take-charge military commander who would take the initiative against Confederate forces.

Goodwin points out that although bringing his three rivals for the Republican nomination into his cabinet was a shrewd move, Lincoln opened the door for conflict. Some of that conflict revolved around the perception that Seward had easier access to the President than his peers. Other conflicts erupted over how slavery issues were to be addressed. Conservative Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, for example, believed the Fugitive Slave Law still applied to loyal states and should be used to return runaways to their owners. In contrast, radical Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase argued escaped slaves should be placed into military service.

Lincoln’s problems with his generals also come into focus. The President clashed with General John Fremont, who took it upon himself to declare martial law in Missouri and liberate slaves belonging to people who supported “their enemies in the field.”  He struggled with General George McClellan, who almost never wanted to take the initiative against the Confederates, and he grew frustrated with the tactical blunders of Generals Hooker and Burnside, blunders that led to devastating defeats.

Goodwin does not ignore the people who made Lincoln’s job easier. Those included his hard-working secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay, and General Ulyssess S. Grant, who proved to be the kind of take-charge commander Lincoln had been looking for since the war began.

One of the hallmarks of Goodwin’s book is her analysis of Lincoln’s leadership. At different points in her book, she highlights four distinct qualities of that leadership:

• An ability to encapsulate the feelings, hopes, and ideas of the nation in language the average citizen could understand. That attribute shown through in the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.
• His rapport with soldiers in the field, engendered by his frequent trips to visit and talk with them. Lincoln shared in the exaltation of their triumphs and the pain of their defeats.
• His lack of vindictiveness and impulsiveness. As long as his Cabinet members and military officers performed skillfully and for the benefit of the country, Lincoln saw no need to replace them. Even when Treasury Secretary Chase prepared to challenge his re-nomination in 1864, Lincoln kept him in office.
• His good sense of timing coupled with an understanding of human nature. Those qualities led him to hold off on announcing the Emancipation Proclamation until a victory at the battle of Antietam made it politically sound to do so. It also enabled him to defuse any number of personal conflicts within his Cabinet, including the one alluded to earlier between Chase and Blair.

The second part of Team of Rivals is supported with the same kind of solid primary source material as the first part. Besides contemporary newspaper accounts, diaries, and letters, Goodwin draws heavily on the personal papers of individual Cabinet members, especially those of Chase, and Seward. She also draws on a number of excellent secondary sources such as James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, T. Harry Williams’ Lincoln and the Radicals, and Charles Whitney’s Lincoln the Citizen.

There really isn’t much to criticize about any part of Goodwin’s masterful work. To be sure, I could have done without her descriptions of Mary Lincoln’s shopping sprees or the way Kate Chase dominated social gatherings. But that is nothing more than my own opinion.

Goodwin concludes her book with a recounting of Lincoln’s assassination and the events leading up to it. The simultaneous attempt on the life of Secretary of State Seward also receives attention. Seward’s eventual recovery was all the more amazing, she notes, since he was still healing from severe injuries suffered in a carriage accident.

In the end, Goodwin affirms that “with his death, Abraham Lincoln had come to seem the embodiment of his own words – ‘With malice toward none; with charity for all.’” Moreover, his legacy, as Stanton had surmised at the moment of his death, “belonged not only to America but to the ages – to be revered and sung throughout all time.”