Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making

Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America

The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.
In May of 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge, unalterably changing the course of American transportation history. Within a year, long-simmering tensions between powerful steamboat interests and burgeoning railroads exploded, and the nationâ€™s attention, absorbed by the Dred Scott case, was riveted by a new civil trial. Dramatically reenacting the Effie Afton caseâ€•from its unlikely inception, complete with a young Abraham Lincolnâ€™s soaring oratory, to the controversial finaleâ€•this â€œmasterfulâ€ (Christian Science Monitor) account gives us the previously untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight. 18 illustrations

Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America