Set against the backdrop of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's presidency, this historical novel describes how young Solomon's heroic rescue of three kidnapped black boys in Columbus, Ohio lead him into the military and ultimately to service as a White House presidential guard. A trained barber (and the author's great grandfather), when the president's personal barber dies unexpectedly, Solomon is called on to fill the opening while continuing as a presidential guard. Sensitive war-time conversations between Lincoln and his cabinet members overheard by Solomon as he shaves and cuts the president's hair shape the young guard's views on public service and the nation's continuing failure to live out the fundamental principle of its Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. The relationship he forms with the beleaguered war-time leader results in Solomon's appointment as a Treasury Department clerk, the first black office worker in the history of the US government. Energized by his trailblazing new responsibilities, and deeply troubled by the president's assassination, Solomon leverages his government worker status and his Masonic leadership position in the battle to preserve the gains of Reconstruction in a nation rapidly sliding back into white supremacy after the death of the Great Emancipator.
