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LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: Thirteen Days to Washington ( Simon & Schuster) by Ted Widmer is a deep history of thirteen days in the life of Abraham Lincoln as he boarded a train in Springfield, IL and journeyed to Washington, DC to take the oath of office and be sworn in as the sixteenth president of the United States. Widmer, a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York and former speechwriter in the Clinton White House, offers \\u201ca colorful, richly detailed overture to Lincoln\'s odyssey\\u201d (Kirkus Reviews) and \\u201ca riveting piece of history and a first-rate read\\u201d (Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Chernow).

The country had never been more divided when Lincoln assumed office in 1861, and his journey to Washington was fraught with danger. The government was on the verge of collapse, and Southerners had vowed to prevent Lincoln\\u2019s inauguration by any means necessary. Stopping in numerous cities throughout Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and finally Washington, Lincoln\\u2019s safe delivery was, as Widmer writes, \\u201cA powerful symbol for the survival of democracy in America.\\u201d

Ted Widmer is a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. He writes actively about American history inThe Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, where he helped create the Disunion feature about the Civil War. From 1997 to 2001, he worked in the White House as a foreign policy speech writer.