Winner, ISHS Superior Achievement Award, 2016

Although they inhabited different political, social, and cultural arenas, Abraham Lincoln and the pioneer generation of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, shared the same nineteenth-century world. Bryon C. Andreasen’s Looking for Lincoln in Illinois: Lincoln and Mormon Country relates more than thirty fascinating and surprising stories that show how the lives of Lincoln and the Mormons intersected.

This richly illustrated and carefully researched book expands on some of the storyboards found on the Looking for Lincoln Story Trail, from the Mormon capital of Nauvoo to the state capital of Springfield. Created by the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, this trail consists of wayside exhibits posted in sites of significance to Lincoln’s life and career across fifty-two communities in Illinois. The book’s keyed maps, historic photos, and descriptions of battles, Mormon expeditions, and events at inns, federal buildings, and even Lincoln’s first Illinois log cabin connect the stories to their physical locations.

Exploring the intriguing question of whether Lincoln and Mormon founder Joseph Smith ever met, the book reveals that they traveled the same routes and likely stayed at the same inns. The book also includes colorful and engaging looks at key figures such as Brigham Young, various Mormon apostles, and more. Anyone inspired by Lincoln, as well as Mormon and Illinois history enthusiasts, will appreciate this look back at a long-past, but not forgotten, landscape. 

Bryon C. Andreasen, a historian at the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, is the author of Looking for Lincoln in Illinois: Lincoln’s Springfield. He was formerly the research historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, and helped create the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition. 

“Like an exceptionally talented photographer, Andreasen cuts through the mythology surrounding Lincoln and the Mormons to provide highly illuminating snapshots of the world they both inhabited.”—Lachlan Mackay, director of the Joseph Smith Historic Site, Nauvoo, Illinois

“Drawing on a lifetime of research, Andreasen describes the historical intersections between America’s most beloved president and its most controversial prophet. The vignettes of the people and places that shaped Lincoln’s life and influenced the development of Mormonism are as carefully researched and nuanced as they are engaging and enlightening.”— Alex D. Smith, historian, Joseph Smith Papers

"Author Byron Andreasen assembles two sets of materials developed to explore the intersection of Lincoln with the Mormons in Illinois. The research appears carefully done [but] the book’s greatest strengths lie in its design and its graphic resources. The text is generously illustrated with well-reproduced photographs, paintings, and images drawn from a wide range of sources. . . . The well-chosen images help bring to life the young Lincoln’s colleagues, relatives, associates and rivals as well as the emerging leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the landscape through which they traveled."—Laura Bayer, Association for Mormon Letters