My husband considered you a dear friend, Mary Todd Lincoln wrote to FrederickDouglass in theweeks afterLincoln’s assassination. The frontier lawyer and the former slave, thecautious politician and thefiery reformer, thePresidentand the most famous black man in America-their lives traced different pathsthatfinally met in the bloodylandscape ofsecession, Civil War, and emancipation.Opponents at first, theygradually becameallies,each influenced by and attracted to the other. Their three meetings in the WhiteHouse signaled a profoundshift in the direction ofthe Civil War, and in the fate of the UnitedStates.James Oakes has written amasterful narrative history, bringing two iconic figures tolife and shedding new light on the central issues of slavery, race, andequality in Civil War America.