Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America. This item is unavailable.Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America

In May of 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge, unalterably changing the course of American transportation history. Within a year, long-simmering tensions between powerful steamboat interests and burgeoning railroads exploded, and the nation's attention, absorbed by the Dred Scott case, was riveted by a new civil trial. Dramatically reenacting the Effie Afton case--from its unlikely inception, complete with a young Abraham Lincoln's soaring oratory, to the controversial finale--this "masterful" (Christian Science Monitor) account gives us the previously untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.

Brian McGinty is an attorney and writer who specializes in American history and law. His previous books include Lincoln's Greatest Case, The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus, and John Brown's Trial. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.