Book review...
Second book about Joseph Holt provides
another positive look at great Kentuckian

“Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally, Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky,” by Elizabeth D. Leonard,  hardcover 448 pages, University of North Carolina Press, 2011, $40.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Elizabeth D. Leonard is the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History at Colby College. She is the author of several books, including “Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War.”)

Reviewed by
ED FORD
Bugle Editor

Elizabeth Leonard states in her book’s introduction that no Civil War-era political figure “has been more unjustly neglected by historians, more misrepresented by Americans’ collective historical ‘memory,’ and, in the end, more completely forgotten than Joseph Holt.”

In the second major biography on President Abraham Lincoln’s Judge Advocate General (Susan Dyer wrote the first in 2009), the author proves her point. Leonard reviews the early life of a Kentuckian who was a brilliant lawyer and public servant who struggles years later to serve the nation, justice and a political assemblage thirsting for blood as he represents the prosecution in the trial of the eight Lincoln assassination conspirators.

As Leonard emphasizes, Joseph Holt was one of those throwbacks who was more interested in doing the right thing than following the easier path of political correctness. Holt was postmaster general in the administration of President James Buchanan and he labored long and hard to streamline and purify the entire post office system, which angered those more interested in serving themselves than the public. It makes the reader wonder how effective the postal system might be today if Holt were in charge.

But what really stands out about Holt is his role in the trial of the assassination conspirators and, particularly, how he handled the vigilante-style justice sought by the Washington City political establishment against Mary Surratt. Often portrayed as a brutal prosecutor and a “turncoat” where his native South was concerned, the author contends that Holt simply was guided by doing that which was right. She tells the story as it happened, that Holt was one dedicated to following the letter of the law, not one that casts him as one of the villains.

Leonard points out that Holt had been accused of withholding from President Andrew Johnson a trial commissioners petition that Surratt’s sentence be converted to life in prison rather than being hanged. Holt denied the accusation, and, the author notes, it was the Judge Advocate General’s job “to present the record of the trial, the commissioners’ verdicts, their recommended sentences and all other pertinent materials – including the petition for Mary Surratt – to the president for review, as he had done so many times before when Abraham Lincoln was alive.”

In summary, the author notes that her book’s purpose is to preserve “a more accurate version of Joseph Holt’s life story.” She has accomplished that.

“Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally” is often difficult to read because of extremely long sentences and paragraphs. However, it’s a worthwhile undertaking.