Here are capsule reviews by Diane Scharper of two new books with a Maryland connection:

Lincoln’s Men: The President and His Private Secretaries by Daniel Mark Epstein (Collins / 262 pages / $26.99). John Hay, John Nicolay and William Stoddard planned to have a good time while serving as secretaries to President Abraham Lincoln. But, according to their letters and journals, good times were few. Potomac River malaria, depression, bilious fever, respiratory illnesses and the turmoil of the Civil War — to say nothing of the stress of working with the president as he tried to cope with a nation on the verge of collapse —made their lives difficult. Epstein, a nationally known Baltimore author and poet, tells the inside story of the three hot-blooded, idealistic young men who served Lincoln from his election to his death in 1865. Epstein quotes the three as they record their infatuations; their impressions of Lincoln’s personality; their feelings about Mrs. Lincoln, whom they called a "hellcat"; and their assurances that the skirmishes beginning in 1860 wouldn’t amount to much. Although Epstein’s reliance on quotes makes the narrative somewhat choppy, his vivid writing brings the subjects alive.

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig Mullaney (Penguin / 386 pages / $28.95). A West Point graduate, Rhodes scholar, Army Ranger, combat veteran and Naval Academy professor, Mullaney grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Rhode Island. He became a soldier because he loved the ritual, symbolism and honor code of the Catholic Church — characteristics that he found in the military — and because of his father’s example of hard work. Then as Mullaney was deployed to Afghanistan, his father decided to ask for a divorce. That occasion became a pivotal moment in Mullaney’s life and in this memoir — suggesting that this account is not just about becoming a man (as in Rudyard Kipling’s poem) but also about learning to forgive. Beginning with Mullaney’s freshman year at West Point, the narrative moves from his youth when he considered joining the priesthood to his later realization that he had a killer instinct to his present, unfinished efforts to deal with his father’s abandonment. Mullaney’s harrowing and humorous details make the book not only a soldier’s story but also a richly human one.