Friends and colleagues brightened immediately when I told them I had embarked on so unusual a book. At the same time, they almost all automatically asked, “How do you go about doing something like that?” By obliging me to frame new questions at various stages in the process, they kept me busy thinking. So I will be greatly pleased if this study opens a conversation about untried alternatives in squeezing new material from history.
Of the many who weighed in with ideas, I owe special thanks to Lizzie Reis and Matt Dennis, T. J. Stiles, J. Christoph Hanckel, Maurizio Valsania, Bill and Joan Witkin, and Jennifer Blakebrough-Raeburn. More good ideas flowed from LSU colleagues Alecia Long, Bill Cooper, Gibril Cole, Reza Pirbhai, MaryKatherine Callaway, Janet McDonald, and Jerry Kennedy; and elsewhere in academia, Amy Greenberg, Jim Broussard, Richard Bell, Doug Egerton, Carolyn Eastman, Jack Larkin, Sari Altschuler, and John Ferling.
For all kinds of kindnesses, I am indebted to Barbara Oberg, at Princeton; and to Jim McClure, also at Princeton, who is keeper of the faith for Salmon Chase studies. Warm thank-yous go to Lucia McMahon, for sending the poignant dreams of Elizabeth Bayard Kirkpatrick; to Rachel Hope Cleves, for sharing her exciting work on Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake; and to Douglas L. Wilson, for his particular insights into Lincoln’s superstitious nature. I am also grateful to the capable and generous people who make the American Antiquarian Society a temple of knowledge: Ellen Dunlap, Tom Knoles, Caroline Sloat, Elizabeth Pope, Tracey Kry, Laura Wasowicz, Maury Bouchard, Andrew Bourque, Paul Erickson, and John Keenum. I received gracious assistance from Jim Green, John Van Horne, Nicole Joniec, and Connie King at the Library Company of Philadelphia; and nearby, at the American Philosophical Society, Marty Levitt contributed smart suggestions of places to look and detours worth pursuing.
I had valuable encouragement from off the beaten path as well, where Alicia Allain, Jean David, Mike Thibodeaux, Moss Harbeck, and Lucy Moore have separately resided. I would be remiss not to give a shout-out to energetic LSU graduate students Andrew Wegmann, Spencer McBride, Terry Wagner, and Geoff Cunningham—living proof that my generation will not be the last to explore and improve upon the discipline of history.
To my agent, Geri Thoma, who believed in the dreams project despite its refusal to fit neatly into a single discipline, I am once again deeply thankful for all the good guidance. In more than one critical respect, Luba Ostashevsky, my editor at Palgrave, knew what this book needed to say before I did. She gave me a slew and a half of excellent advice and greatly improved the book’s focus. Assistant Editor Laura Lancaster patiently helped navigate the unruly seas of permissions and illustrations. She and Production Editor Carla Benton treated my book with great tenderness.
My son Josh took an early interest in the project and helped with the title and chapter headings, declaring that I’d finally written a book he could read painlessly. It goes without saying that my partner, Nancy Isenberg, has helped shepherd this book along from start to finish—we have been sharing dreams for some time now.