The poet and the president

The poet and the president

In early 1862, Union generals, soldiers and even the commander in chief of the Civil War were literally at a loss. Morale ran low. Taking the oath of office in March 1861, President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was a newcomer to the nation’s capital. Compared to the flash-and-dash style of winning Confederate general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was not a military man. Lee, educated at West Point, was a career Union Army officer who chose to side with …