I saw a different side to both Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln. She was presented as kinder, softer, more caring than I have often read of her, and he was presented, at least in my mind, as more aloof regarding his family than I hoped him and have been taught to believe him to be. I also thought that William Douglas was presented in a more balanced way than I have read him to be. Initially he is portrayed as negative, but the author is fair to him when she comments that he made himself available to the President, to help him in any way that he could.