The Lincoln Moon
In 1857, young Truman “Scrump” Armstrong is living a contented existence on his family’s Illinois farm. His parents, Jack and Hannah, are willing to indulge his love of reading, and his older brother, William “Duff” Armstrong, whom Scrump idolizes, good-naturedly lets Scrump tag along on at least some of his adventures. When a grisly discovery convinces the Armstrongs to offer their home as a station on the Underground Railroad, life takes an adventurous turn for Scrump.
Then Duff is found unconscious in a ditch, with little memory of how he got there—and in hours finds himself in jail, charged with the murder of the loutish, wealthy Preston Metzker. With everyone in their community convinced that Duff is guilty, the Armstrongs turn in desperation to an old friend—Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer and politician whom Jack and Hannah first met as a poor nobody in New Salem, Illinois—to defend Duff.
Taking the form of a memoir written by the aged Scrump, The Lincoln Moon is based on a famous 1858 trial in which Lincoln persuaded the judge to accept an almanac as evidence to contradict eyewitness testimony. While Nelson takes a number of historical liberties with his material, including the existence of Scrump, the divergences, duly pointed out in the author’s note, probably won’t bother most readers. The writing is sharp and Scrump and his family, including their farm animals, are vividly rendered, making this novel a pleasure to read.
