Lincoln's Angel - Book Review

Lincoln's Angel: The Rebecca Pomroy Story is a historical fiction as well as a biographical novel.  The author, DL Fowler, is a master storyteller and a thorough researcher. Much has been written about Abraham Lincoln's life, but the author's extensive research and quest for lost stories make this book stand out.

The author clarifies that the story is his personal interpretation of historical records, letters, journals, and visits to historical sites.  He includes documentation of principle resources in a table of citations.  The characters in the story are real people, and relationships are accurate, but interactions and conversations are fictionalized.

The reader is introduced to Rebecca Pomroy, a fourteen-year-old living in Boston in the year 1832. Although the family is struggling to survive, Rebecca's father teachers her compassion and humility through his charity work to help the destitute who live in squalor.

His sudden death devastates her family. Her subsequent dealings with death, disease, and financial survival that the family endures - challenges her self-promise to help the needy. Twenty years of conflicting questions and decisions lead her to become a Civil War nurse.

Rebecca becomes a nurse in Abraham Lincoln's household. As she supports Lincoln through the tragic death of his son and the emotional trauma his wife endures, she becomes Lincoln's confidant. The despair and self-doubt that causes Lincoln grief, the lost battles and political trauma that he shares with her - bond their friendship. He explains that his purpose is to abolish rebellion and reunite the country. The fate of the Blacks is secondary.  The suffocating misery of so many lives makes him despondent and in need of hope. She is able to encourage hope.

Rebecca's nursing responsibilities are reported with the gore and anguish she experienced. From assisting in a surgery to saw off a soldier's leg to dealing with the traumatic, horrifying battle injuries, screams of pain, and smells of death and gore, the reader will experience the horrors of war.

Regardless of the reader's outlook on the Civil War, this historically based novel will enlighten and inspire personal research. Rebecca's courage, determination, and compassion will empower the reader to follow his own hopes and altruistic goals.
The author has written two other novels based on Lincoln's life.