Book Description

“[Does]an excellent job portraying General Hardin’s life in the context of a changing America . . . a definitive biography of a forgotten hero” (Civil War News). Nominated for the Gilder Lehrman Prize, this is the first biography devoted to the life of a remarkable young man who, in the words of Civil War historian Ezra Warner, “embarked upon a combat career which has few parallels in the annals of the army for gallantry, wounds sustained, and the obscurity into which he had lapsed a generation before his death.” From Hardin’s childhood in Illinois, where a slave girl implanted in him a fear of ghosts, to his attendance at West Point, along with other future luminaries, to his service on the frontier,where he took particular note of the bearing of the Cheyenne, Hardin’s life reveals the progress of a century. Made Brigadier General at age twenty-seven, Hardin fought with distinction at Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Gettysburg, Grant’s Overland Campaign, and the July 1864 Rebel raid on Washington. He was wounded four times, nearly died on two occasions, and lost an arm during the war. On one occasion, he was ambushed on a road by Mosby’s Men, one of whom may have been Lincoln conspirator Lewis Paine. Hardin himself took part in the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln’s assassination. Though General Hardin’s mother skillfully played upon her friendship with the President and the First Lady to advance her son’s career, his gallantry and leadership in combat sufficed to earn him renown. Lincoln’s Bold Lion “restores the man’s rightful position as an American hero” (Chicago Daily Herald).