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No matter what prism a person uses to look at Abraham Lincoln -- his leadership style, his depression, his writing skills -- our nation's 16th president emerges as both a great person and deeply human, with the troubles and foibles that implies.

That's certainly true of the view of Lincoln that Matthew Algeo provides in "Abe & Fido: Lincoln's Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion" (Chicago Review Press), one of many books published recently to coincide with the sesquicentennial anniversary of Lincoln's death on April 15.

Algeo has a passion for exploring the back roads of American history: I enjoyed one of his earlier books, "The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth."

"Abe & Fido" is entertaining, but it's more than a novelty. Algeo makes the case that Lincoln was ahead of his time in his compassionate treatment of animals:

"Animals had always played a central role in Abraham Lincoln's life. As a young man, the kindness he showed them was practically unique on the frontier. At a time when pulling the heads off live geese was considered a perfectly reasonable way to pass the time, Lincoln preached that all living creatures were deserving of tender mercy -- even ants. He thought nothing of rescuing animals in distress: a pig stuck in mud, orphaned kittens, even hatchlings separated from their mother."

Based on records, Algeo determined that Fido, a mutt whom Algeo describes as a "bedraggled ball of yellow fur," had joined the Lincoln family in Springfield, Ill., by June of 1855. "He'd always had a soft spot for what, in his country accent, he called 'yaller dogs.' He'd owned one named Honey when he was a boy in Kentucky, and another, named Joe, when he was a young man in Indiana."

While Lincoln's younger sons, Willie and Tad, were excited to have Fido in the family, his spouse, Mary Todd Lincoln, was afraid of dogs. The future President navigated the tension between his love of animals and his desire to please and protect his anxious spouse for several years, until he left for the White House.

Fido wasn't the only pet in the Lincoln home. He also loved cats; he was "that rare sort" who loved cats and dogs equally, Algeo writes. Algeo quotes an earlier biographer's statement that "With him a favorite way of forgetting his worries was to get down on the floor to pet and play with the cat."

Algeo also spends considerable energy on Lincoln's love of horses, "which were the engines that drove the economy" in that time. In the late 1850s, Lincoln stabled two horses, Tom and Old Bob, in a barn behind his home.

Algeo offers several stories about Lincoln and pigs, from the boyhood pig that young Lincoln treated as his first pet (until his father turned it into dinner, to Lincoln's horror), to the tale of a pig stuck in mud that attorney Lincoln, dressed in a new suit, rescued on his way to court. A statue in Taylorville, Ill., pays tribute to the porcine-friendly President.

Algeo suggests several reasons why Lincoln might have developed a compassion for animals unusual in his time. He cites biographer David Herbert Donald's speculation that the death of Lincoln's mother made him averse to cruelty and bloodshed. Algeo also points to Lincoln's reading of Thomas Paine's writings; in "The Age of Reason" Paine wrote that "everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty...."

While many dogs have lived in the White House as pets, both before Lincoln and after him, Fido did not make the trip to Washington with the President's family. Algeo describes the thinking behind that decision:

"For Abraham Lincoln, decided what to do with his dog was an agonizing choice. Lincoln adored Fido, as did (sons) Willie and Tad. But during the campaign he had seen how frightened the dog was of loud noises. The long train ride to Washington alone would terrify the poor creature. And then there was the constant pomp that surrounded the presidency: more twenty-one gun salutes, artillery fire, and fireworks. Lincoln, whose empathy for animals extended back to the earliest years of his life, realized the White House would be no place for Fido. "

Fido was left in Springfield in the care of the Roll family, whose sons were friends of Willie and Tad and already knew and loved the dog. Lincoln also left behind a seven-foot horsehair sofa, custom made for his long legs, that had become Fido's favorite resting place.

As the President's former dog, Fido became a popular critter in Springfield and was free to roam around the town. Sadly, he only outlived his former master by a year. When the dog approached a local drunk sitting on the curb one day in 1866, the drunk stabbed Fido in the chest. The wounded dog struggled away from the scene. He was found dead cuddled up against the chimney of the local Unitarian church. The Roll sons buried Fido in their backyard.