Francis Preston Blair

by Elbert B. Smith

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029295106
• ISBN13: 9780029295106
• Release Date: February 1980
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 481 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Strong influence in America

Fracis Preston Blair, Sr. affected American policy for a longer time than any other newspaper editor in our history. The author presents us with a very well written, easy to read biography of not only Francis, Sr. but of the whole family. It serves as a great introduction to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, through the maze of the political morass of the 1850's, the administration of Abraham Lincoln who accepted the thoughts of this early Democrat turned Republican who finally reverted to the Democratic Party later in his long life. Along the way the reader meets Montgomery Blair, Lincoln's Postmaster General for many years, and his younger brother Francis P. Blair, Jr. (Frank) who served in Congress, commanded as a general in the Civil War, and is given a fair appraisal of the younger btrother. The book is really a history of the family and serves as an excellent introduction to the politics of Missouri and the nation. However you get this book, read it and enjoy it. I have no problem giving it five stars.

A most interesting and fascinating book!

Francis Preston Blair was born at Abingdon, Va., on April 12, 1791, was editor of the Jackson Democratic paper, the Globe, from 1830 to 1845, and died Oct 19, 1876. I found this book written with a sprightly style and really enjoyed it. Francis Preston Blair was a confidant of Jackson and Lincoln, and the father of Montgomery Blair (Lincoln's Postmaster-General till the fall of 1864) and of Francis Preston "Frank" Blair, Jr., who served in the House of Representatives and the Senate from Missouri and was a Civil War general and, with Thomas Hart Benton, is Missouri's representative in Statutory Hall in Washington. Francis Preston Blair, Sr., was among the earliest Republicans, but reverted to the Democratic Party after the Civil War ended. His life was an extraordinary one, lived thru momentous years, and this is a good book to read. It is not overly scholarly--footnotes are not copious and there is no bibliography as such, but the author is clearly at home in the period (he has done a biography of Benton, and discussed it with John F. Kennedy, Benton being a figure in Kennedy's Profiles of Courage), and tells the story well. The period the subject's life covered is a period of high drama and one that has alwys been a source of fascination for me.