The Tarheel Lincoln

Rating:
Summary: New stuff here
Review: Anyone interested in Lincoln will learn from the family accounts and traditions of the Enloe family of North Carolina. Plus the pictures - I had not seen a picture of Thomas Lincoln. The resemblance between Lincoln and what could be his half brother - Wesley Enloe, is startling. I had just finished reading David Donald's "Lincoln's Herndon" about the life of Lincoln's Springfield, IL law partner. So, much of the last half of the book seemed repetitious. I would buy the book again.

Rating:
Summary: New stuff here
Review: Anyone interested in Lincoln will learn from the family accounts and traditions of the Enloe family of North Carolina. Plus the pictures - I had not seen a picture of Thomas Lincoln. The resemblance between Lincoln and what could be his half brother - Wesley Enloe, is startling. I had just finished reading David Donald's "Lincoln's Herndon" about the life of Lincoln's Springfield, IL law partner. So, much of the last half of the book seemed repetitious. I would buy the book again.

Rating:
Summary: Well-researched, true story
Review: The authors set forth the premise that Abraham Enloe, a prosperous Western North Carolina landowner, was the biological father of Abraham Lincoln, rather than Thomas Lincoln as the history books would have it. From childhood to very early adulthood, Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's mother, was a bond servant in the Enloe home. The authors quote many sworn, witnessed statements of well-respected citizens and Enloe relatives interviewed in the 1800s. These people remembered the scandal of Nancy Hanks, Abraham Enloe and their illegitimate son, Abraham. Even the pastor performing Tom Lincoln's marriage to Nancy Hanks remembered seeing young Abraham at the wedding in 1806, precluding the official story line that Abraham Lincoln was born three years after the Lincoln - Hanks marriage. Additionally, the authors point out abundant inconsistencies which make the official Kentucky birth story impossible. At least 4 other books and numerous magazine and newspaper articles were written about this subject in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many quoted extensively by the authors.

If prior to reading this book, I had never heard this version of Lincoln's birth and early life, I would believe it because of the authors' painstaking research. However, I have heard this story all my life because my great, great, great grandfather was Abraham Enloe. During her early childhood, my grandmother lived with Abraham Enloe's legitimate son, Wesley (her grandfather and Abraham Lincoln's look-alike half-brother) in the house on the Oconaluftee River where much of the story takes place. It was she who passed the story to me.

Abraham Lincoln's parentage does not change his achievements or his tremendous legacy to this country. He overcame poverty, lack of formal schooling, child abuse, the loss of his mother, and many other difficulties to become one of our greatest presidents. If you add to this list the stigma of illegitimacy, it just gives us more insight into the strength and determination of this incredible man's character.