CNU professor wins top national prize for his Civil War book

After writing or editing 13 books, Civil War historian Jonathan White received a call about his most recent work when he was away from his quiet Christopher Newport University office and his mind far from scholarly pursuits. He was at home, trying to get his young daughter to take a bath. And she was being fussy.

His book, the caller said, had just won the 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, sharing it with Jon Meacham, the renowned presidential historian.

The prize, awarded annually to a book about the Civil War or Abraham Lincoln, is widely considered the most prestigious of its kind. Past winners include David Blight, the Sterling Professor of History, African American studies and American studies at Yale University, and Pulitzer Prize winner James M. McPherson.

“My wife must have sensed that I was on an important call,” White recalled. Or, maybe, he added, she’d just heard their daughter’s protests, but his wife, Lauren, came running up the stairs and took over bath duty.

The cover of "A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House," a book by Jonathan W. White. (Courtesy of Jonathan W. White)

He finished the call, sitting on their bed in near bewilderment.

“I have looked up to so many of the scholars who’ve won in the past,” he said, “and it’s something I’ve longed for, for a very long time.”

In “A House Built by Slaves,” he explored the relationship Lincoln had with African Americans during the war. White used primary sources such as letters, speeches and newspaper interviews to demonstrate how as president, Lincoln routinely met with Black people, both formerly enslaved and those born free.

While he was on the phone, Lauren finished bath time and walked into the bedroom.

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“She came over and kind of gave me a look of, ‘Did you win?’”

He gave her two thumbs up. She pumped her fists in the air.

“I let her know that I was sharing it with Meacham, and she was as excited as I was.”

As a frequent guest and commenter on cable news, Meacham is about as famous as historians get. His biography “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. The book for which he is sharing the Lincoln prize is “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.”

He and White will split the $50,000 prize. Each will receive a life-size bust of Lincoln.

White said, “I’m really looking forward to putting that in my office at Christopher Newport.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8139, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com