# Lincoln Prize

The Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, founded by the late Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman in partnership with Gabor Boritt, Director Emeritus of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. It has been awarded annually since 1991 for "the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or the American Civil War era."

## Laureates

The prize has been split equally between two entries on six occasions (1992, 2000, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2014). Recipients of the $50,000 prize have included:
| Year | Author | Winning Title |
| 1991 | Ken Burns | The Civil War |
| 1992 | William S. McFeely | Frederick Douglass |
| 1992 | Charles Royster | The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans |
| 1993 | Kenneth Stampp | The Peculiar Institution |
| 1994 | Ira Berlin, Barbara Fields, Steven Miller, Joseph Reidy, Leslie Rowland, eds. | Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War |
| 1995 | Phillip Shaw Paludan | The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln |
| 1996 | David Herbert Donald | Lincoln |
| 1997 | Don Fehrenbacher | Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s and The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics |
| 1998 | James M. McPherson | For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War |
| 1999 | Douglas L. Wilson | Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln |
| 2000 | John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger | Runaway Slaves: Rebels in the Plantation |
| 2000 | Allen C. Guelzo | Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President |
| 2001 | Russell F. Weigley | A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865 |
| 2002 | David W. Blight | Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory |
| 2003 | George C. Rable | Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! |
| 2004 | Richard Carwardine | Lincoln |
| 2005 | Allen C. Guelzo | Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation |
| 2006 | Doris Kearns Goodwin | Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln |
| 2007 | Douglas L. Wilson | Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words |
| 2008 | James Oakes | The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics |
| 2008 | Elizabeth Brown Pryor | Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his Private Letters |
| 2009 | James M. McPherson | Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief |
| 2009 | Craig Symonds | Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War |
| 2010 | Michael Burlingame | Abraham Lincoln: A Life |
| 2011 | Eric Foner | The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery |
| 2012 | Elizabeth D. Leonard | Lincoln's Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky |
| 2012 | William C. Harris | Lincoln and the Border States |
| 2013 | James Oakes | Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 |
| 2014 | Allen C. Guelzo | Gettysburg: The Last Invasion |
| 2014 | Martin P. Johnson | Writing the Gettysburg Address |
| 2015 | Harold Holzer | Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion |
| 2016 | Martha Hodes | Mourning Lincoln |
| 2017 | James B. Conroy; Douglas R. Egerton | Conroy, Lincoln's White House: The People's House in Wartime Egerton, Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America |
| 2018 | Edward L. Ayers | The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America |
| 2019 | David W. Blight | Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom |
| 2020 | Elizabeth R. Varon | Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War |
| 2021 | David S. Reynolds | Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times |
| 2022 | Caroline E. Janney | Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee's Army after Appomattox |
| 2023 | Jon Meacham; Jonathan White | Meacham, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle White, A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House |
| 2024 | Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant | Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era |
| 2025 | Edda L. Fields-Black | COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War |