Available August 9th
Pre-order your copy today

As many of you know, I've worked on my novel for years.  Thanks to you and your support, it will be published next month.

From the start, I’ve had the same idea: a mystery series starring young Abraham Lincoln as a brand-new lawyer, as told by his real-life best friend Joshua Speed.  But figuring out how to tell a Lincoln and Speed story that people would want to read proved a challenge.  

My first complete draft involved a convoluted and dense story about a contested will.  It might have been a page-turner for my old Trusts & Estates professor from law school, but in retrospect few other readers would have gotten past page two. 

After many further drafts and the invaluable input of professional editors and generous friends alike, I came up with the story for These Honored Dead: 

The enterprising second son of a wealthy plantation owner, Speed has struck off on his own.  When an orphaned girl from a neighboring town is murdered and suspicion falls on her aunt, Speed makes it his mission to clear her good name.  In this quest, Speed finds a crucial ally: a newly minted lawyer who has recently begun sharing his lodgings named Lincoln.  But as more bodies are discovered, and the case starts to fall apart at the seams, there’s one question on everybody’s mind: does Lincoln have what it takes to crack his first murder case?

Some early notices: 

“What a splendid debut novel! Jonathan Putnam combines an historian’s understanding of character and context with a remarkable narrative drive that kept me fascinated from start to finish as I tried to figure out how the mystery would unfold. I read history during the days and mysteries every night before going to sleep, so for me, These Honored Dead was one of the most enjoyable works of fiction I have read in a long time.” -- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize Winner and author of Team of Rivals

“This book is a time machine, and the mystery at its core is equally elegant and brutal. Just like our history. But, man, is it fun to root for Abraham Lincoln.” -- Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The President’s Shadow 

"These Honored Dead feels so completely authentic that it might very well be a recovered journal from the nineteenth century, peopled with true-life investigators named Lincoln and Speed. But the pacing is so assured, and the mystery is so intriguing that it can't be anything but a masterfully crafted modern novel. Jonathan Putnam has crafted the most gripping debut in years, and I can't wait to read his next book." --Alex Grecian, national bestselling author of the Scotland Yard Murder Squad series 

“Putnam combines the historical fact of a lifelong friendship with lively fiction in a debut set on the edge of the American frontier.” -- Kirkus Reviews 

Pre-order your copy today

   

I hope to see you at one of my upcoming book events:

• August 9: The Coop, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, 7-9 p.m. 
• August 10: Kirkland & Ellis Launch Party, New York, NY, 5-8 p.m. 
• September 13: Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI, 7-9 p.m. 
• September 14: 57th Street Books, Chicago, IL, 6-8 p.m. 
• October 13: New York Society Library, New York, NY, 6:30 p.m. 

The Gettysburg Address: Reality and Iconography 
On the left is the best known photograph of Lincoln at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery; on the right is the lithograph that was widely circulated with the text of his speech. 

"These Honored Dead"

My title is a phrase from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  Living in London over the past year has given me new perspective on U.S. history. By horrible coincidence, the deadliest battles of two wars that shaped our world each began on July 1st. 

Europeans recently commemorated the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme in northern France. At 7:30 a.m. on July 1, 1916, the order was given to tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth foot soldiers to “go over the top” of the trenches and head towards the German machine-gunners dug in scarcely 100 yards away. By nightfall, over 19,000 young men lay dead on the field. The bloody stalemate would continue for five more months. 

Just over 50 years earlier, the epochal battle of the Civil War began in Gettysburg, PA, on July 1, 1863. Over 51,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded or captured over the three days of fighting that ended Lee’s advance and marked the turning point of the war. 

As Lincoln rode by train to the battlefield several months later to attend the dedication of the battle cemetery, he was still writing out the remarks he intended to make. The first page of the copy of those remarks that Lincoln spoke from is on the official stationery of the Executive Mansion (as the White House was called then), but the second page appears on a plain sheet of lined paper. Moreover, while the first page contains Lincoln’s cross-outs and interlineations, the second page is without visible edits. The most likely explanation is that Lincoln continued to work carefully on the latter half of his remarks on the journey from Washington and then, having arrived, rewrote them on a new sheet.

There are a total of five versions of Gettysburg Address written out in Lincoln’s hand and no two are exactly the same. This has given rise to several historical controversies about what Lincoln actually said. Most famously, the original manuscript version does not contain the phrase “under God” in describing the nation’s resolve for “a new birth of freedom.” However, several of the versions prepared by Lincoln after the event do, and the contemporaneous report of the speech by the Associated Press also contains the phrase. It would seem that, like any great writer, Lincoln continued editing his words until the very last moment.