Description

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The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.

In the early hours of May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge—the first railroad bridge ever to span the Mississippi River. Soon after, the newly constructed vessel, crowded with passengers and livestock, erupted into flames and sank in the river below, taking much of the bridge with it.

As lawyer and Lincoln scholar Brian McGinty dramatically reveals in Lincoln's Greatest Case, no one was killed, but the question of who was at fault cried out for an answer. Backed by powerful steamboat interests in St. Louis, the owners of the Effie Afton quickly pressed suit, hoping that a victory would not only prevent the construction of any future bridges from crossing the Mississippi but also thwart the burgeoning spread of railroads from Chicago. The fate of the long-dreamed-of transcontinental railroad lurked ominously in the background, for if rails could not cross the Mississippi by bridge, how could they span the continent all the way to the Pacific?

The official title of the case was Hurd et al. v. The Railroad Bridge Company, but it could have been St. Louis v. Chicago, for the transportation future of the whole nation was at stake. Indeed, was it to be dominated by steamboats or by railroads? Conducted at almost the same time as the notorious Dred Scott case, this new trial riveted the nation’s attention. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, already well known as one of the best trial lawyers in Illinois, was summoned to Chicago to join a handful of crack legal practitioners in the defense of the bridge. While there, he succesfully helped unite the disparate regions of the country with a truly transcontinental rail system and, in the process, added to the stellar reputation that vaulted him into the White House less than four years later.

Re-creating the Effie Afton case from its unlikely inception to its controversial finale, McGinty brilliantly animates this legal cauldron of the late 1850s, which turned out to be the most consequential trial in Lincoln's nearly quarter century as a lawyer. Along the way, the tall prairie lawyer's consummate legal skills and instincts are also brought to vivid life, as is the history of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi, the progress of railroads west of the Appalachians, and the epochal clashes of railroads and steamboats at the river’s edge.

Lincoln's Greatest Case is legal history on a grand scale and an essential first act to a pivotal Lincoln drama we did not know was there.

About the Author

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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.

Praise For…

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McGinty provides valuable context unavailable anywhere else and a deep understanding of the dynamic and contested legal, commercial, and political world that informed Lincoln’s support for westward expansion and economic development, shaped his ideas on law, and honed his skills as a lawyer. McGinty’s book gives us the best accounting of Lincoln, the lawyer, to date. Highly recommended.
— Randall M. Miller - Library Journal (Starred Review)

McGinty makes good on his promise to articulate why a now obscure 1857 trial had much broader significance than one would expect of a legal battle over transportation….A masterful popular history that places its focal point in a richly detailed wider context and will get readers interested in Lincoln’s legal career.
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

A fascinating study of the case that capped Lincoln's career as a lawyer and fostered the creation of the vast railroad network that would bind the nation together.
— Richard Slotkin, author of The Long Road to Antietam

Brian McGinty's riveting account of the Effie Afton trial of 1857 not only highlights the role of Abraham Lincoln in assuring the superiority of railroad transport over river navigation in the nation's development but also how the case gave a boost to Lincoln's career both as a lawyer and as a political leader.

— James M. McPherson, author of Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief

Accomplished legal historian Brian McGinty has provided the definitive account of a crucial episode in Abraham Lincoln's career as an attorney: the precedent-setting Effie Afton case. McGinty deftly explains the judicial and political implications of this effort by Lincoln to establish the inevitability (and desirability) of economic development in the West, and does so through superior research, fine reasoning, and lucid prose. Effie Afton was much more than an ordinary legal case—and this book is much more than a mere account of a pre-Civil War trial. Anyone seeking to better understand the origins of the growing tensions between political parties in mid-nineteenth-century America will find this book absolutely essential.

— Harold Holzer, Roger Hertog Fellow, New-York Historical Society

Of the 5,000-plus cases in which attorney Abraham Lincoln participated, none had more national significance than the one that Brian McGinty so ably describes and analyzes in this highly readable volume. Based on thorough research, McGinty not only sheds bright light on Lincoln's contribution to the defense of the bridge company but also places the story within the larger context of American economic, social, and military history.
— Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

As Brian McGinty demonstrates so well in his latest book, Lincoln showed great political courage as an attorney when he was called upon to defend progress in 1857. While Lincoln successfully defended the Rock Island Railroad from claims of the owners of the river boat Effie Afton, he was also a successful mediator, recognizing the importance of both modes of transportation.

— Frank J. Williams, founding chairman of the Lincoln Forum

A lively account of this navigational dispute and its central role in America’s economic and political development… Lincoln’s Greatest Case convincingly shows that 1857 was a watershed year for the moral and political questions surrounding slavery’s expansion to the west… The book is also a case study of discomfort with new technology—and the futility of using a tort suit to prevent the adoption of inevitable innovation.

— Margaret A. Little - Wall Street Journal

Sometimes, while the future seems to lie in the establishment of invisible connections, it can be rewarding to look to the past, when it was infrastructure that held the promise of unity. McGinty enlivens this history of pre-Civil War America.
— Elizabeth Taylor - Chicago Tribune

McGinty does a masterful job bringing this 157-year-old case to life.
— David Holahan - Christian Science Monitor