A NOVEL BASED ON TRUE EVENTS — A lost voice rises from the dustbins of history, adding fresh perspectives on President Lincoln's struggle with racial justice.
As Lincoln's personal barber and valet, Johnson did not influence the President by whispering into his ear, he was the living embodiment of the price paid trying to keep the Union together, a daily reminder that half measures are an insult to humanity — because calculating the cost of peace is impossible, where humans enter the equation.
After escaping slavery, twenty-five-year-old William Henry Johnson goes to the nation's capital as Abraham Lincoln's valet, hoping the new president will help him reunite his family. But when Lincoln chooses an expedient peace over freedom, Johnson's hopes and the war against slavery may be doomed—unless Johnson can turn him from long-held prejudices and convince him to embrace equality. Changing Lincoln's heart and mind comes at a severe price.
Amid much controversy over the legacies of historical figures, comes a novel that explores Lincoln's complex and evolving views on slavery, emancipation, abolition, and racial equality. But more than a Lincoln novel, it is the forgotten story of a young man who likely influenced Lincoln more than any celebrated abolitionist when it came to his turn from segregationist to champion of freedom and equality for all.