Unable to Escape This Toil

"Combining history, travelogue, and memoir, Kent's engagingly written account is sure to find a receptive audience among Lincoln scholars and enthusiasts alike." -John C. Rodrigue, PhD, author of Freedom's Crescent, finalist for the 2024 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and recipient of the John L. Nau III Prize in Civil War Studies

Lincoln in New England revisits the important towns where Lincoln spoke and the pivotal figures that helped define the great issues leading to the Civil War. Readers join native New Englander and Lincoln historian David J. Kent as he travels back in time to examine the nation's downward spiral into conflict.

Readers will explore the crucial issues that predicated the civil war, the birth of the Republican Party as an anti-slavery faction, and New England's own short-lived flirtation with secession in the spirit of independence. Through the book's first-person travelogue style, historical maps with redrawn routes, original writings from Lincoln himself, insight from Lincoln historians, and black and white photographs, readers gain a full picture of the region's vital influence leading up to the Civil War.