With its release over Thanksgiving weekend, audiences the world over are falling in love with Steven Spielberg's historical epic, "Lincoln," but just how accurate is the film's portrayal of the greatest man to ever wear a stovepipe hat?

Hollywood doesn't have the best track record when it comes to preserving historical accuracy in period films and biopics - remember that airplane flying over Brad Pitt's shoulder in "Troy"? - but biographer James McPherson says not to worry with "Lincoln." Because "Lincoln" focuses on a very short time span in the 16^th president's life, deeply analyzing his personality, political tactics and relationship with his cabinet and family, McPherson says this is the most accurate portrayal of the iconic leader he's seen yet.

"There have been other movies about Lincoln. They tended to reflect a romanticized Lincoln, almost a mythologized Lincoln," said McPherson, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, Civil War historian, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Lincoln biography "Battle Cry of Freedom."

"This comes closer to reality. This shows Lincoln's exhaustion, his gauntness - and his storytelling," McPherson added.

Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones, "Lincoln" is based in part on the book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Initially, Spielberg had optioned Goodwin's biography as the basis for much of the film. After working on the screenplay for six years though, ultimately screenwriter Tony Kushner only used the book as a jumping-off point for "Lincoln," according to The Los Angeles Times.

Goodwin's book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his Cabinet from 1861 to 1865. The book focuses on Lincoln's mostly successful attempts to reconcile conflicting personalities and political factions on the path to abolition and victory in the US Civil War.

McPherson was one of many Civil War historians who met with Spielberg and screenwriter Kushner early on in the writing process to help provide background for the film. The Los Angeles Times recently caught up with him to get to the bottom of just how realistic Spielberg's portrayal of the famous president really is.

How accurate is the "Lincoln" movie?

Interview via The Los Angeles Times

Daniel Day-Lewis' voice is quite high in the movie. Did Lincoln really sound like that?

Lincoln's voice was described as being fairly high-pitched, rather than the deep baritone used by earlier actors. I think Lincoln may have had a little bit more of an Indiana-Kentucky twang than Mr. Day-Lewis has. Lincoln rarely if ever used profanity, and some of the dialogue calls for him to do that. I thought that was a bit jarring.

In the opening scene, Lincoln is shown on the street, chatting casually with some soldiers. Was he that accessible to ordinary people?

He was accessible, but usually in his office in the White House. He would in effect hold office hours and people could come to see him. The opening scene where he's basically out on the street talking to soldiers is probably pretty fictional.

James Spader supplies a lot of the movie's comic relief as W.N. Bilbo, a lobbyist the White House enlisted to help pass the 13th Amendment. How realistic is the portrayal of his backroom deal-making?

It's overdone, but the effort to sway lame-duck Democrats through promises of patronage either for themselves or political supporters was basically accurate. Bilbo was a real person, but a certain amount of dramatic liberty is taken with the character. [Secretary of State William] Seward did use some New York politicians to carry out this effort, and in that respect there's a certain amount of accuracy.

Sally Field plays Mary Todd Lincoln as slightly unhinged, but smart and a bit of a political player herself. Is that a fair representation of the first lady?

This movie reflects a fairly sympathetic reading of Mary Todd's character, although there are allusions to her going off the rails in 1862. The one somewhat unpersuasive scene was when she was greeting Thaddeus Stevens and some of the other congressmen at the White House reception and started bandying with them. It was an effort to give Sally Field some opportunity to portray Mary's wittiness and feistiness, which she certainly possessed, but I don't think it really happened.

In the movie, Lincoln's youngest son, Tad [Gulliver McGrath], drives his pony through the White House, gets into the president's war maps and gets away with a lot of mischief. Did it really happen that way?

That was pretty much true. When [Lincoln's third son] Willie was alive, the two of them together had free rein in the White House, much to the consternation of [Lincoln's private secretaries] John Hay and John Nicolay and much to the consternation of some members of the Cabinet. Lincoln was a very indulgent father toward those two boys, but not toward his older son, Robert.

Robert Todd Lincoln is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who's a heartthrob to many 2012 moviegoers. Was the president's eldest son actually cute?

He was pretty good looking. He did look a fair amount like the young actor who portrayed him. He had the reputation of being a little bit of a stuffed shirt. He did desperately want to get into the Army and I think for the reasons that are portrayed in the movie - he felt his reputation would be forever smirched if he didn't. He spent most of the war at Harvard as a student. Although I'll tell you one thing that bothered me - I thought it was out of character when Lincoln slapped Robert.

Some have criticized the small, relatively passive roles of the black characters in the movie - did Lincoln know many black people personally? He didn't have a lot of personal black friends, but he had grown to admire a lot of black people he knew abstractly. One thing the movie leaves out is his relationship with Frederick Douglass. Lincoln came to know Douglass and admire him greatly, and Douglass did come to the White House.

Radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) is revealed as having a romantic relationship that could have driven his avid abolitionism. Did that relationship really exist?

It was widely rumored at the time. There's no proof one way or the other. Stephens kept that pretty private. He was not married and had no children, but the truth is we really don't know.