Hey, welcome to the Bill Bennett Show. Welcome back. We have thoughtful conversations about

the news of the day, address the existential threats to America, and talk about basically

whatever we want to talk about. Claude and I, right, Claude?

Basically, yeah. Today we'll catch up with John Krebs. It's got a great new book called

The Rails Plitter, the story of Abraham Lincoln's journey from a log cabin to the White House.

Hello, I'm John Krebs, and I like to tell you about a new novel about Abraham Lincoln I've written

called The Rails Plitter. You may have read Old A by a novel that tells the story in the last five

years of Lincoln's life. The Rails Plitter tells Lincoln's story before he was president,

and in many ways it's the most fascinating part of his life. The Rails Plitter begins with

Lincoln's youth on the frontier where he grows up with an axe in one hand and book in the other,

determined to make something like himself. He sets off on one adventure after another,

from rafting down the Mississippi River to marching in an Indian war. When he's 26, the girl he

hopes to marry dies of a fever. He spends days wandering the countryside in grief. A few years later,

he purchases a ring and scribes with the words, love is eternal, and enters a tempestuous

marriage with Mary Todd. Lincoln literally wrestles his way to prominence on the Illinois prairies.

He teaches himself the law and enters the rough and tumble world of frontier politics.

With Mary's encouragement, he wins a term in the US Congress, but his political career falters.

They're both devastated by the loss of a child. As arguments over slavery sweep the country,

Lincoln finds something worth fighting for, and his debates with brash rival Stephen Douglas

catapult him toward the White House. There's an old adage that says if you want to understand the man,

you must first know the boy. I wrote the Rails Plitter so we could walk beside Lincoln through

Indiana Forests and Illinois cornfields and come to know his hopes and struggles on his winding path

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