Born in
Castine, Maine, he moved to
Dixon, Illinois in 1856, where he became involved in
John C. Frémont's campaign for president. During the campaign, he became friends with
Abraham Lincoln. Brooks moved to
Kansas in 1857 as a "free state" settler, but returned to
Illinois about a year later, then moved to
California in 1859. After the death of his wife in 1862, Brooks moved to
Washington, D.C. to cover the Lincoln administration for the
Sacramento Daily Union. He was accepted into the Lincoln household as an old friend;
Michael Burlingame writes that "few people were as close to Lincoln as Brooks, a kind of surrogate son to the president, who was twenty years his senior". Unlike most people, Brooks was able to maintain a close friendship with both the President and
Mrs. Lincoln. When Brooks was detailed to cover the
1864 Democratic Convention in
Chicago, President Lincoln asked Brooks to also report back in detail by private letter. In 1884, Brooks wrote the first novel exclusively about baseball:
Our Base Ball Club and how It Won the Championship. Brooks' 258 Washington dispatches for the
Sacramento Daily Union were published under the name "Castine." In 1895, Brooks published his biography of Lincoln, ''Washington in Lincoln's Time'', based on his Castine articles, as well as personal observations and interviews. The book is now considered an indispensable source of information on the Lincoln
White House. In 1901, Brooks published
The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition based largely on the
Nicholas Biddle history of the
expedition. Brooks was assisted by the notes written in the margins of his manuscript by Dr.
Elliott Coues, who had edited the 1894 edition of Biddle, and who had wide experience as an explorer of the
American West. In the 2017 documentary film
The Gettysburg Address, Brooks is portrayed by actor
Jason Alexander. ==Notes==