William seward new biography of ronaldo 7

‘Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man’

by Walter Stahr

Simon & Schuster, 704 pp., $32.50

Next time you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, take a moment to thank William Henry Seward.

It was his idea to have a national Thanksgiving holiday, and President Lincoln proclaimed it so.

That may have been Seward’s least important accomplishment. One of most influential politicians of the 19th century, he left his mark on some of the most significant events in American history, as thoroughly chronicled in “Seward,” a monumental new biography by Walter Stahr.

Though Seward was physically unimpressive, people listened when he spoke, and he managed to get himself elected governor of New York, then senator.

He joined the Senate at a time of increasing tensions between North and South over the issue of slavery, and soon won the enmity of Southern