Description: His presence and his leadership inspired his contemporaries; his life story will do the same for generations to come.
Brief description: Michael Burlingame (MYSTIC, CT) is Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. He is the author or editor of several books about Lincoln, including Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks; The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality; and An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd.