As always with historians of this period, Carl Sandburg and Bruce Catton may be read for both information and pleasure, although the latter was certainly more scrupulous with his research. The Prairie Years in Sandburg’s multivolume biography of Lincoln and “The Crowd at the Wigwam” and “Railsplitter” chapters in Catton’s The Coming Fury contain excellent accounts of the convention. Readers interested in more detail should consult William Baringer’s comprehensive Lincoln‘s Rise to Power . The best primary source is contained in Murat Halstead’s eyewitness account The Caucuses of 1860 .

—P.A.