They called him a baboon, a murderer, a slave-lover. And they called him the Great Emancipator, the Savior of the Union, a saint. I called him friend and partner.”
| Billy Herndon (Honestly) Represents AbeKentucky Repertory Theatre will present a vignette from this play by Kentucky author Wade Hall. One Man’s Lincoln began touring Kentucky with performances in Lexington in March, 2008, then became part of the repertory in the home theatre at Horse Cave. It has received rave reviews from both the Herald-Leader and the Courier-Journal for being a deeply emotional and personal portrayal. One Man’s Lincoln is a compelling portrait of Abraham Lincoln from the man who knew him best, Billy Herndon, Lincoln’s friend and law partner for 17 years in Springfield, Illinois. In early 1861, as he was leaving to be inaugurated president, Lincoln told Herndon to keep his name on the shingle outside their office because he intended to return some day. After the assassination, Herndon immediately began working on a definitive biography of our sixteenth president. It would be Lincoln unvarnished, a great man in all his humanity, neither saint nor villain. Outspoken and controversial, Kentucky-born like Lincoln himself, Herndon was tireless. He spent more than twenty years conducting interviews and gathering materials for his great work. Lincoln as a family man, lawyer, politician, even as a soldier – he left no facet of his friend’s life unstudied. But Herndon was no writer, and it was not until 1888, with the collaboration of Jesse Weik, that Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life was finally published. Herndon died in 1891. In One Man’s Lincoln, we meet an aging Herndon who relishes the chance to talk about the man he knew so well. He paints a portrait of Lincoln unique in its vividness and intimacy. Is it the unvarnished truth about Kentucky’s greatest native son? You be the judge. 
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