Although he'd been to soirées in "Paree" and New York's Stork Club, American artist and muralist Thomas Hart Benton played a harmonica and reveled in his self-honed image as a hard-drinking hillbilly.

He led his nation through the most difficult times it had known, restoring a shattered Union and ending slavery in America. Lincoln had struggled to heal the wounds of war, yet he became one of its ...