New York, NY, January 13—The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2026 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize:

• Richard Carwardine, Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Douglas R. Egerton, A Man on Fire: The Worlds of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Oxford University Press)
• Judith Giesberg, Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families(Simon & Schuster)
• Robert H. Gudmestad, The Devil’s Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War (Louisiana State University Press)
• Jonathan S. Jones, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis(University of North Carolina Press)
• Anne E. Marshall, Cassius Marcellus Clay: The Life of an Antislavery Slaveholder and the Paradox of American Reform (University of North Carolina Press)
• Michael Vorenberg, Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War(Alfred A. Knopf)

These finalists were recommended to the Lincoln Prize board from ninety book submissions reviewed by a three-person jury: Amy Murrell Taylor (chair), T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History at the University of Kentucky; Robert K. D. Colby, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi; and Andrew F. Lang, Associate Professor of History at Mississippi State University.

James G. Basker, President and CEO of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, observed, “The seven finalists for the 2026 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, chosen from a huge field of nominations, represent the very finest Civil War–era scholarship. These books deepen our understanding of how the Civil War reshaped American politics, society, and lived experience, and collectively they form a perfect reading list for anyone who cares about American history and its resonances today.”

The 2026 laureate will be announced in early March. All of the finalists will be invited to an event on Thursday, April 16 hosted at the Yale Club in New York City, where the laureate will be recognized and awarded a $50,000 prize and a bronze replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s life-size bust Lincoln the Man.

About the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize
The Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize is awarded annually to a work that enhances the general public’s understanding of Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or the American Civil War era. The $50,000 prize was established in 1990 by businessmen and philanthropists Lewis E. Lehrman and the late Richard Gilder, in partnership with Gettysburg College and Professor Gabor Boritt, Director Emeritus of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.

About the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History was founded in 1994 by Lewis E. Lehrman and the late Richard Gilder, visionaries and lifelong supporters of American history education. The Institute is the leading nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of American history through educational programs and resources. We serve K–12 teachers and students, honor scholars, and welcome and inform the general public. At the core of the Institute is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history, with more than 87,000 primary source documents. Learn more at gilderlehrman.org and follow GLI on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and X.

PRESS CONTACTS
Daniela Muhling
bookprizes@gilderlehrman.org
(646) 366-9666, ext. 144

Kate Brashares
brashares@gilderlehrman.org
(646) 366-9666, ext. 153

Press release and Lincoln Prize image provided courtesy of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

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