Indeed, Donald says these papers will offer him a unique perspective on Lincoln's executive decisions. "I think and hope that there will be a different feeling about the President's decisions from sitting at the president's desk and seeing how decisions were made," Donald says.

"This research covers all the excitement and drama you get, an inch by inch view. It's like being George Bush attacking Saddam Hussein and observing him on a minute-by-minute basis," the scholar says.

Donald says this newly-examined documentation does not consist of secret memoranda per se, but rather personal letters and notes that crossed Lincoln's desk during his presidency. These papers are now contained on 97 reels of microfilm that Donald has been reading over the last two and one-half years.

"They will show what he knew about command decisions, about Grant's campaign, about the 1864 Republican nomination," Donald says. "This is the way to find out exactly what he thought."

Another Biography?

Apparently, Donald is not the only scholar in the Harvard History Department interested in Abraham Lincoln. Professor William E. Gienapp is also working on a Lincoln biography, due to be published by McGraw-Hill in 1992.

But unlike Donald, who hopes to write a lengthy text on the prominent president's life and work, Gienapp says he has more limited goals in mind.

"For Donald, his biography is much more major. It is the capstone of his career," Gienapp says. "My work fills the need for an up-to-date biography suitable for college courses, a shorter one that will be more widely used in the classroom."

Donald and Gienapp are Harvard's only 19th century American political historians. And when the older scholar departs, Gienapp will be left the formidable task of carrying on Donald's legacy.

"Donald has left behind a strong program in teaching and research on both the undergraduate and graduate level," says Gienapp, who came to Harvard from the University of Wyoming in 1989. "He has had a strong following in teaching that I hope to continue."

Donald came to Harvard in 1973 from Johns Hopkins University, where he was a professor and director of the Institute of Southern History. Before Hopkins, Donald held positions at Columbia University, Smith College and Princeton University.

The Civil War scholar recalls his first day of class here, where he encountered a crowd of 200 in a room made for 60.

It was impossible to deliver his first lecture in such an overcrowded hall, Donald recalls, so he gave a few words of introduction, distributed the syllabuses, and ended class. As students began inching their way out of the classroom, one approached Donald, touched his arm, and exclaimed, "It's so good to hear someone talking Southern at Harvard!"

That scene hasn't changed much in 18 years. This spring more than 300 students packed a small Emerson lecture hall to take Donald's class. His course, History 1653: "Civil War and Reconstruction," was only one of three non-Core listings that made this year's top 10 enrollment ranks.

"David is a great teacher and scholar," says Thernstrom, who also arrived at Harvard in 1973. The two have served on numerous committees together. "This is a tremendous loss beyond question," Thernstrom says of Donald's upcoming retirement.