New Abraham Lincoln doc asserts he liked 'dashing' and 'daring' men

We’ve always been here. We’ve always been in plain sight. We’ve always been making history. And according to the new documentary Lover of Men, one of the most consequential people in American history was one of us — queer.

Lover Of Men, by director Shaun Peterson, documents and explores President Abraham Lincoln'sromantic relationships with men. Using never-before-seen photographs and letters preeminent Lincoln scholars paint an intimate portrait of Lincoln’s private and passionate same-sex entanglements. The 16th president, who served from March of 1861 through April of 1865 when he died from a bullet wound inflicted by John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation midway through his time in office in 1863. It declared, “forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.”

Lover of Men also places stories of Lincoln’s relationships with men in historical context exploring the ways that 19th-century people’s mores around sexuality and marriage differ from today’s. It serves not only as a fascinating piece of queer history but asks larger questions about how society sees sexuality and gender today.

One scholar even asserts, “Lincoln has a type — dashing, daring.” The same scholar also says, “Lincoln probably slept in the same bed with men more than he did with women.” Several of the film's scholars concur that through letters between Lincoln and the politician Joshua Fry Speed, with whom he shared a bed for four years, “there is love between those two men.” Regarding another of Lincoln's male partners, his bodyguard Captain David Derickson, one scholar exclaims, "He was seen wearing Lincoln's nightshirt."

Watch the trailer for Lover of Men below.

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