During the Civil War, few outside Abraham Lincoln's immediate circle of family, friends, and advisors had as much access to the president as the young California journalist Noah Brooks. Born in New England, Brooks had lived in Illinois - where he first met Lincoln - before migrating to California. The Sacramento Daily Union posted him to Washington, D.C., in 1862.

From the Union capital, Brooks filed dispatches that were unusually candid, not only because he and the president were so close but also because of the long delay between the time Lincoln disclosed something to Brooks and the time the issue of the Sacramento Daily Union containing that information could reach Washington.

Brooks's famous 1895 memoir, Washington in Lincoln's Time, included none of the raw material - wartime dispatches, selected letters, and personal reminiscences - which Michael Burlingame collects for the first time in Lincoln Observed. This new volume provides a singular perspective on Lincoln's last years and a solid appraisal of the president's personality and politics.

It also reveals much about Washington politics during those anxious times and reflects public opinion in the North about the conduct of the war. Lincoln Observed offers an intimate portrait of Abraham Lincoln and a riveting insider's account of Washington during the Civil War.