Richard Nelson Current was born on the 5th of October 1912 in Colorado City, Colorado.
The fourth volume titled Lincoln the President: Midstream to the Last Full Measure won the Bancroft Prize from Columbia University in 1956.
Current accused Vidal of willfully distorting historical records and showing ignorance of linguistic differences between British English and American English in his 1984 novel Lincoln.
His papers are now housed in the Rare Book Room of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
He taught at Rutgers University, Hamilton College, Northern Michigan University, Lawrence University, Mills College, Salisbury State University, the University of Illinois, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.