Benjamin Franklin’s public life as scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher and author, among other activities, is well known. His private life, however, is another matter. Franklin had a complex relationship with his family, and while in his 20s and married, he fathered an illegitimate son, William, whom he adopted. They enjoyed a close relationship for many years, the son assisting his father with scientific and diplomatic matters, performing admirably in the military and impressing many with his intelligence and charm.

Their relationship changed dramatically with the coming of the American Revolution. As Daniel Mark Epstein demonstrates in his well-researched and absorbing The Loyal Son, their decisions to support opposite sides in the conflict led to an irreparable break. By 1776, William was Royal Governor of New Jersey, a post he did not want to give up, and Benjamin had many important responsibilities in the years ahead, including the chairmanship of the Continental Congress’ Committee of Secret Correspondence, the “first CIA.” William was imprisoned for a significant period, under difficult circumstances, but was eventually released thanks to the efforts of Benjamin’s friends and allies. Even then, William volunteered for additional efforts for the Empire.

Epstein, the author of many books, including the acclaimed The Lincolns, offers a balanced, nuanced study, sympathetic to but not uncritical of either man. Shortly before he died, Benjamin wrote to his son, “nothing has ever hurt me so much . . . as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son; and not only deserted, but to find him taking up arms against me, in a cause wherein my good fame, fortune, and life were all at stake.”

The gripping narrative illustrates the public issues that drove the father and son apart and illuminates in detail the agonizing cost to each man.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In 1849, after serving one term in the U. S. Congress, Abraham Lincoln returned home to Springfield, Illinois, to resume his law practice. In retrospect, Lincoln portrayed himself during the years after his return as virtually retired from politics. But as an astute and well-connected political strategist, concerned about the future of the country, he also remained involved in public life. He and his law partner, William Herndon, had the best private library in town, subscribed to many newspapers and journals from around the country, and both regularly wrote anonymous editorials for a Whig Party newspaper. As Herndon pointed out about Lincoln, “He was always calculating, and always planning ahead. His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.” In his magnificent Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. 2, 1849-1856, Sidney Blumenthal explores in superbly researched and beautifully written detail the crucial period when “Lincoln’s public and private statements” began to reflect “a moderate politician with radical thoughts.” Events in Washington and elsewhere threatened to tear the country apart over the extension of slavery in the West. And the Whig Party, for years Lincoln’s political home, was collapsing and the Republican Party was being established.       

Lincoln’s personal experience also shaped his thought. A turning point came in autumn of 1849 when he was in Kentucky, a state that was supposed to be an example to guide other Southern states to move slowly toward emancipation. Instead, he saw the ruthlessness of the pro-slavery forces crush the benevolent paternalism and gradual emancipation plans of Lincoln’s political hero, Henry Clay. Several months later the Compromise of 1850 passed the Congress and President Millard Fillmore proclaimed it a “permanent settlement” of the extension of slavery question. The landslide victory of Franklin Pierce in 1852 seemed to confirm this judgment. But not for long.

Excerpts from Lincoln’s speeches and other writings reflect his deep understanding of the racist undercurrents of his time and the strong tensions between and among various political groups. His outstanding abilities as a thinker and his elegant mode of expression are also revealed. The best example of this is a speech delivered in Springfield in 1854, almost 17,000 words in published form, probably the longest he ever delivered, which laid the foundation for his politics through 1860. Lincoln delivered the speech several times and in longer versions. It is an early (that is before the more celebrated Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858), devastating critique of Stephen A. Douglas’s defense of slavery and, among other points, presented his understanding that the founding generation tolerated slavery only by “necessity,” because it already existed and went to great lengths to limit it with the goal of ending it. The excerpts from the speech and Blumenthal’s masterly description and analysis of it make for great reading.

The first volume of Blumenthal’s projected four-volume biography, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849, was widely praised by Lincoln scholars and many other reviewers. This second volume, by a writer with years of experience as a political journalist and presidential advisor, is also extremely well done, and anyone interested in Lincoln’s political career will want to read it.     

According to the Osage American Indians, when May’s full moon shines and the Earth warms, taller plants overtake April’s tiny flowers, “stealing their light and water” until they die. This is bestselling author and journalist David Grann’s fitting metaphor for what befell the Osages in Oklahoma, beginning in May 1921. His thoroughly researched account, Killers of the Flower Moon, is a chilling tale of unfettered greed, cruel prejudice and corrupted justice.

When the U.S. government drove the Osages from their territory in Kansas to northeastern Oklahoma, no one knew about the rich oil deposits below the surface of their new land. Soon the oil would make the Osages incredibly rich—and their white neighbors incredibly jealous.

Since only a tribe-enrolled Osage could claim the profits from their allotted lands, a law was conveniently passed requiring that guardians be appointed to “manage” the Osages’ considerable wealth. The fraud and treachery that ensued, referred to as “Indian business” by anyone involved, deprived the Osage people of their money, property and even their lives. Families victimized by shootings, bombings and poisonings found no justice at the hands of corrupt lawmen, bankers and judges.

However, the travesties and tragedies unfolding in Oklahoma coincided with the rise of the ambitious J. Edgar Hoover and the new Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was the detective work of agent and former Texas Ranger Tom White that helped Hoover transform the formerly inept and ridiculed FBI into a powerful agency. The FBI was finally able to deliver a measure of justice to the Osages, albeit too late for many victims.

Grann’s tale could have ended there and served its purpose well, revealing this “Reign of Terror” that was, until now, largely forgotten by most. But he goes on to reveal the many unresolved murders that preceded 1921 and the ongoing disenfranchisement of present-day Osages, adding to the sheer power of truth in Killers of the Flower Moon.

The Nez Perce War of 1877 was fought over a four-month period between the U.S. Army and various bands of Nez Perce Indians along a zigzagging, 1,200-mile course through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and into Montana almost to the Canadian border. Neither side wanted the war, but both were relentless in its prosecution and equally given to committing atrocities. Ironically, the conflict's leaders—General Oliver Otis Howard and Chief Joseph—would, in the years afterward, become close, if wary, acquaintances and crucial to the heightening of each other's national reputation.

Sharfstein, a professor of law and history at Vanderbilt, begins his panoramic narrative with Howard losing his right arm to Confederate gunfire in the early days of the Civil War. Still, Howard continued to lead his troops and achieve rank. After the war, he was appointed head of the Freedmen's Bureau and charged with integrating the newly freed slaves into full citizenship. In that capacity, he established the university that still bears his name. But the resistance of white Southerners and their political allies stifled his most ambitious aims and contributed to his growing tendency to rationalize his failures, both bureaucratically and on the battle field.

Chief Joseph, as Sharfstein explains, was less a war leader than a diplomat. Long before and after the 1877 war, he argued incessantly for his tribe to be allowed to occupy its Oregon homeland rather than be harried to a reservation. However, the waves of settlers seeking to open up the resource-rich Northwest simply washed over him. Sharfstein paints his pictures of this beautiful and terrifying region on a canvas that stretches from daunting inland mountains to bustling seacoast towns.

Deftly woven into the story are portraits of such fascinating figures as Charles Erskine Scott Wood, who served as Howard's aide and later became a political radical, and the fierce warrior Yellow Wolf, whose remembered accounts of battle provide Sharfstein with some of his most chilling descriptions.