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Naturally, this irritated Truman. In another longhand spasm, a letter he wrote to Stevenson but never sent, Truman said he had “come to the conclusion that you are embarrassed by having the President of the United States in your corner.” In another unsent letter to Stevenson, Truman wrote, “Cowfever could not have treated me any more shabbily than you have.”

Still, Truman was nothing if not a loyal Democrat, and he campaigned hard for Stevenson, even harder, some said, than he’d campaigned for himself four years earlier. It was another exhausting whistle-stop campaign, with Truman crisscrossing the country in the Ferdinand Magellan. (Stevenson campaigned by airplane.) “He … put everything he had into trying to help Stevenson,” said Matthew Connelly. But it was for naught. Eisenhower carried thirty-nine of the forty-eight states. He even won Illinois and Missouri.

Springfield held no special place in Harry Truman’s heart.

The Trumans didn’t stop in Springfield, but I did. I wanted to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a ninety-million-dollar complex in downtown Springfield that opened in 2005. Unlike most other presidential libraries, it is not run by the National Archives. Instead, the state of Illinois runs it.

With Harry’s library, the museum component was practically an afterthought. The original design included just two main exhibit rooms. When it was proposed that one of the rooms be dedicated to telling the story of Truman’s life, the former president vetoed the idea. As Wayne Grover, the head of the National Archives, explained at the time, “Mr. Truman … would be offended by anything that looked too much like an advertisement for him.” In fact, the museum would not include a comprehensive exhibit on Truman’s life until the late 1990s.

The Lincoln Library, on the other hand, suffers no shortage of exhibits dedicated to its namesake. The museum, which was designed by HOK, the same architectural firm that designs “retro” ballparks like Baltimore’s Camden Yards, has been described as “cutting edge” and “state of the art.” It features life-size replicas of Lincoln’s boyhood home (a log cabin, of course), his law office in Springfield (which is kind of superfluous, since the real thing is just a few blocks away), his White House cabinet room, his box at Ford’s Theater, even his funeral cortege. Each of these replicas is inhabited by mannequins that are very lifelike (except when deathlike is more appropriate) and a little creepy. Gathered around the table in the cabinet room were Lincoln, seven members of his cabinet—and one real live human being dressed in period costume. He gave me quite a start when he said hello.

The museum unabashedly attempts to be hip. The 1860 election is covered by a videotaped MSNBC news report in a room made to look like a modern TV control room. Of course, it’s all very interactive as well. One wall is completely covered with Civil War–era photographs. The corresponding captions can only be retrieved by touching a computer screen.

The museum does have some cool stuff: a signed copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, a ticket to Lincoln’s second inaugural, a schoolbook containing the earliest known example of his handwriting, a photograph of Fido, the family dog in Springfield. But on the whole it seemed too flashy, designed less to educate or entertain than to simply keep visitors from being bored.

Personally, I like my museums the same way I like my martinis: very dry. Apparently I’m not alone. Historian John Y. Simon has dismissed the Lincoln Museum as “Six Flags over Lincoln” or “Lincolnland.” It’s a far cry from the “research center” that Harry Truman envisioned for his own library. Yet it has proved immensely popular. The museum welcomed its one millionth visitor in 2007, less than two years after it opened, and (it claims) faster than any other presidential museum. Take that, Harry!

Around five o’clock the Trumans pulled into a Shell station on the outskirts of Decatur, Illinois.