To John Muir, With Gratitude
The same week my book Restless Fires: Young John Muir’s Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf in 1867-68 came out, my wife and I saw “Lincoln,” Spielberg’s tour-de-force from the same Civil War era. I was delighted to see the screenwriter’s reference to Lincoln’s pivotal journey at age 17. He witnessed slavery first-hand when desperate runaway …