Drum beats' is about Very Queer History: The book is by the late homosexual activist Charles Shively who uses some interesting and also surprising historical interpretation methods to argue that Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual, and also a male lover of his best friend, Joshua Speed. It inspired another homosexual activist, C.A. Tripp, to write an entire book, 'The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln' asserting the tendentious Lincoln-gay theory, which has been debunked by many genuine Lincoln scholars.