Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Thoughts on Griffin and Sabine, first trilogy

This is some notes I wanted to make on another book series before I talked about reading The Impossible Us. This will be spoiler territory for the first Griffin and Sabine book trilogy.  I think I read this series long before I started this blog so there shouldn't be mentions of it already around these parts. Discussion of the plot below the spoiler cut. It's not a review since I haven't reread these lately. 

Harvey, here's a wallbanger for ya

I picked up this book on a free table and what the fucking fuck. The beginning of it is all sweet and this old lady doing some magical yarn spinning to re--matchmake a divorced couple.

Then we start the actual book, in which the heroine is still moping and getting drunk with her friends about how her ex-husband out of the blue said he no longer wanted children and she had to divorce him and she just cannot get over it. So she and her friends get the bright idea to (a) call him over for a "plumbing emergency," (b) hand him some drugged beer, (c) have her tie him spread-eagle and drugged to the bed and then (d) engage in some sperm banditry so she can still have his baby.

Hi, isn't this totally raping a dude? 

I don't care if he "gets into it," this is so wrong. Clearly the author is more into "ooh kinky sex tie-ups" than thinking out the horribleness of why you would do this to someone. 

Gave up on page 90. 

For those who Google

5 TIPS FOR HOW TO READ FASTER WITHOUT LOSING COMPREHENSION

The Line of Death

Sometimes when reading, such as when you are in a writing group, someone will draw a red line after a certain point and declare that they can read no more of this. It's called the Line of Death.

I am trying to force myself to go through my entire bookshelf of free books I picked up somewhere and never read so I can hopefully get rid of them. As a speedreader, I tend to try to give something like maybe at least 100 pages or half the book or something before I give up on it. So far I haven't loved any of these books I've had sitting around for quite some time and am so meh I can't finish them or just don't care about reviewing them because I was that bored. But hoo boy am I hitting the line of death and throwing the book fast on some of these. I need to rant a bit. I know there's a lot of tedious or boring or same old kinda shit romance novels out there, but some of these just made me rage.

The one with the creepy sperm and egg donation:

Mostly I was just bored on this, but the writing style is so...ugh, not great. "Pak, as he was known to his friends...." and then a chapter later, "Pete, as he liked to be called..." Though the author likes to throw his full name around, a lot, because now he is Impressive and A Millionaire and Wearing a HUGO BOSS funeral attire suit today. Pete decides to take his leave from being CEO for a year and says he'll fire anyone who calls him during that time, which seems quite rude. He gets offended when his secretary asks him if he's going to go watch television or something because he haaaaaaaaaaates television and OMG. "It was the worst thing Millie could have said to her boss." He also supposedly has booked therapy appointments THREE TIMES A WEEK (remind me to ask my therapist how feasible that one is) and then most of the time apparently doesn't show up. I guess he can afford the "I'm still charging you for this appointment" fees that the shrink will charge him for being a flakeass, but come on! Also, it's published in 2009 and yet the heroine still can't figure out a way to get in contact with Mr. CEO. She called his work and they said he was out and the alumni association wouldn't hand out his contact information. From what I remember of the late 2000's, you could still have a pretty good shot at getting in contact with someone online even without the dreaded Facebook, and she couldn't just leave a message or write his company? Also, they are angsting over sperm and egg donations from at least a decade ago and you're like, what brought this angst on?

Line of death: page 32, mostly because I was all "this writing style is not very good and I don't think this is going to get better." Also looking online, why does the hero apparently have two different names...? I don't mean the Pak/Pete thing, I mean like seeing reviews where the guy is named Sam. Huh? 

The one with the astronomy professor and the union leader:

I thought this had potential--astronomy profession and union worker--but despite the hero and heroine having the hots for each other right off, he yells at her (and everyone), threatens her, and by page 76, when I hit the line of death, she's telling him he's left bruises on her. THAT IS NOT OKAY. This was written in 2012 and writing a romance (er, not a specifically BDSM-y one at least) where the guy yells, threatens, and bruises the heroine up is NOT OKAY. Isn't this author supposed to have a good reputation? I got the impression that the guy was supposed to be nice (at least in the first chapter by himself he seems nice and is also categorically against his abusive father-in-law), but why did he turn into Mr. Rage? It sounds like the Smart Bitches review was less bothered by this stuff, but...uck. 

Line of death: page 76, because I was creeped out. Also, does that cover look like a girl who works in a mill to you? No. It does not. Read the comments in the link for fun with that. 

The book that makes someone in 2019 want to throw it at a damn wall: 

This book is written in 1999 and shows it.

Problems:

• The heroine writes comedy on TV shows. Every single bad stereotype of sexist awful all-male coworkers who smoke cigars all day--in a hospital--is being done. God forbid the heroine not want to reek of cigar all day either. 
• She tries to tell her new boss not to sexually harass anyone and guess how that goes over. Look, she is totally cool with me sexually harassing her because I'm a cripple! (see below) 
• Almost none of the jokes are actually funny so far, though a couple did make me slightly snicker (when she says she has a heart shaped diamond because her fiance is a cardiologist, her boss says imagine what it would have been if he was a proctologist). I am at a loss as to why an abominable snowman falling in love with the TV show heroine is considered to be a winning humor idea. Even the heroine, who basically just pulled that out of her ass, is all "I do not know how I am going to pull this off." Nobody here is actually funny, to the point where it was reminding me of this series where we're told people are funny but I never actually laugh at the "jokes." If you can't write jokes, have them write a drama series in a hospital or something, perhaps? I'll give the evil boss slight credit because I at least slightly smirked at a few of his jokes, but "God of Jokes," he ain't. 
• Words like the r-word and "cripple" are used, repeatedly on that last one because the new boss has what I'm guessing is cerebral palsy or something. The heroine is very obviously put off by the guy for various reasons--he ain't too pleasant most of the time in the first few pages--but his physicality appears to be an issue as well. Though yeah, if he's somewhat hard to understand speaking, that is an issue.
• But mostly where I wanted to chuck this book out the window? Page 66, when the heroine objects to smelling like cigar and says she's going to go out somewhere where she can breathe and the new "cripple" boss PICKS HER UP BY HER ANKLES AND DANGLES HER OUT A WINDOW. He claims it's okay because Sid Caesar did it to Mel Brooks. "Remember what this did for Mel's career." Two of the "good guy" coworkers pull her back up, but the third is all, "Make sure she doesn't die on my car." That is an actual line in the book. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK. Also, if he is as handicapped as he sounds, how the fuck is he able to just pick up a woman and hang her out a window? Seriously, she should have fucking sued (I don't know if she does, but I"m gonna guess NO) or sued or quit or something because THAT AIN'T SAFE. 
• I peeked a few pages ahead and it gets even worse from there, but I had to fucking stop. The romance is supposed to be between her and the jerk boss WHO HUNG HER OUT A WINDOW and I CAN'T EVEN WITH THIS.

Line of death: page 67. 

I can't take this any more. I need to read a few books I am pretty sure ahead of time are at least going to be decent. 

Use an Index Card to Learn How to Speed Read

For those of you who ask once in a while how to do it, well, here's one link.

A DNF review

Dear Author:

I don't normally start reviews like this, but I feel compelled to do so this time. Why? Because if you start out at the start of the book (As Husbands Go) essentially saying, "My husband died while he was out with a hooker," on page 3 to be precise, you probably don't need to be slow and drag out the suspense of "OMG my husband is missing! What could have happened? He's never done this before! He loves me! He's always home to sleep!," blah de blah. It takes 80 pages for us to finally get to the death and the hooker, and all the angst and pain and worry and "who do I call" and "how do I deal with parents and kids" and on and on and on and I just wanted to yell CUT TO THE CHASE ALREADY. You ALREADY TOLD US what happened to him with the hooker, all I am doing by now is waiting for the story to get on. I am not in suspense and worry about poor Jonah's whereabouts BECAUSE YOU ALREADY TOLD ME THEM. 

If you want the book to have suspense and make me genuinely wonder about perfect Jonah's whereabouts, then don't tell me where he ended up on page 3.* The fact that you chose to pop that bubble on page 3 makes me think that wasn't your goal--but then why drag everything out for so long? I was bored. I didn't care. I already knew where this was going but you were stalling on going to it. 

 

* Though to be fair, the marketing, cover, and book flap are all gonna give this away anyway. There's a coffin on the cover.

 

I get that the narrator, one Susie Gersten, is beating around the bush in her narration. She admits as much. "Why am I babbling on like this? Obviously, I don't want to deal with the story I need to tell. But also because I never bought that business about the shortest distance between two points is a straight line," she said on page 11. But the beating around was making me seriously considering making this a DNF for the first 80 pages, and that's not a good look for a book. 

Also, I am gonna roll my eyes a bit about how Susie does know that she's not socially supposed to say, "I'm hot and gorgeous," except she is, so she beats around the bush by claiming to have some kind of imaginary overbite. There is four pages at the start dedicated to the looks of Susie Gersten. Good lord woman, just say you're tall and hot and prettier than the hooker and move on with it.

 

Anyway, I went over 100 pages and I still wasn't any more interested in Susie's plight. I tried flipping through the book backwards to see if I could get more interested in it and it was not working. I think the plot gets moving more from there, but I wasn't loving Susie and things were slow and when I decided to run to the library after work so I could have something else to read on the way home, I think that says something.

Oh god, I can't deal with this any more. Team of Rivals review.

You know how I used to do book reviews about presidents? Well, GOOD GOD I HAVE TOO MANY NOTES ON THESE DAMN BOOKS I NEVER WROTE UP. Because they just went on for years and years and years. I have been trying to write the review of Team of Rivals for like 2 years now or something and I'm TIRED OF IT. I am tired of trying to rewrite my notes and organize it. TIRED OF IT. Every other review stopped because of that one. SUCH A BRICK TO REVIEW, THAT BOOK. It's good, mind you, but gaaaaaaaaaawd.

I want to clear my docket. I want to not feel guilty about "Team of Rivals" not having been written up. I want it OUTTA HERE. So I am gonna post it as is, about halfway written up nice and the other half raw notes written sketchily and in present tense (I don't know why I do that while reading). It's about a 4.5 star review. Sometimes it can be a bit tedious about some things that aren't the most crucial, like Kate Chase's love life, I think the author likes her way more than was important to mention here. But otherwise, it's very good...if loooooooong. 

---

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
By Doris Kearns Goodwin

This starts out with the 1860 Republican nominations, looking in on all the other candidates besides Lincoln (though he’s looked at too). The candidates were:

William Henry Seward, former senator and governor. Happily married, five kids, great at speeches, great personality, wacky dress sense (“Seward preferred pantaloons and a long-tailed frock coat”) and dramatically blew his nose in public while taking snuff. “Such flamboyance and celebrity almost lent an aura of inevitability to his nomination.” He assumed he was going to get it. Seward was a naturally cheerful guy who had a bad voice for speeches. Seward was besties with Thurlow Weed, “dictator of New York State for nearly half a century,” and Weed managed all of Seward’s successful campaigns. They were basically considered one person by the general public. Weed’s nickname was “the Dictator” and he practiced memorizing names because “ a politician who sees a man once should remember him forever.” “I had no idea that dictators were such amiable creatures,” Seward said to Weed once. Seward mentioned one time that his coachman on a carriage ride didn’t believe him when he said he was governor of New York. They went into the next tavern to ask someone who was, and the tavern dude said it was Weed. Hah.

Seward was friends with Albert Haller Tracy, a senator who uh…turned out to be quite clingy. Frances Seward originally said “He and Henry appear equally in love with each other.” Tracy was all, “It shames my manhood that I am so attached to you. It is a foolish fondness from which no good can come.” (Oh lord, ain’t that the truth.) He mentions “a womanish longing to see you.” Seward at first reciprocated his feelings, (he also mentions “feelings which I had become half ashamed for their effeminancy to confess I possessed.”) and then Tracy would get snippy when Seward didn’t write back immediately and beat himself up for being so attached. This led to a rivalry with Weed, and Weed reasonably avoided visiting when Tracy was around. Except Seward needed to pick Weed for collaboration and that made Tracy mad.

Oddly enough, Tracy transferred his unrequited love for Henry to his wife Frances, who was feeling annoyed that her husband was paying more attention to politics than to her and the family. The Tracys and the Sewards stay in the same hotel during a legislative session and Tracy would follow the Sewards around while his wife was off on a trip to go home. Tracy and Frances would hang out together, he’d gripe about how he fought with his wife, they read poetry together... Even though as far as we can tell it wasn’t physical, it was an emotional affair. While her husband was off in Europe, she wrote him. When Seward returned, she showed him their letters and asked him to determine if Tracy was trying to break them up. He refused to read them at first, but a further letter made her cry and Seward resolved to confront him. Except then he didn’t. Started feeling terrible that his ambition was affecting his marriage. She forgave him.

He then got an emo letter from Tracy essentially saying Seward couldn’t love him enough and that’s why he’s been acting like this. Seward said he misunderstood the nature of their alienation, mentioned his wife there and says Tracy lost that magic influence he had over him. You can have my respect, but not my friendship or affection.

Seward was not an abolitionist and thought slavery in the slave states was already beyond the reach of national power, but somehow people found him to be a threat about this anyway. I am guessing this is because while he didn’t believe black men were equal to whites or able to assimilate, they should have the same privileges as whites.

What mistakes did Seward make regarding the election? Well, Weed advised him to avoid the debates at home, so he went to Europe for 8 months and assumed it was all sewn up. Also, both Seward and Weed didn’t take the political desires of Horace Greeley seriously, so Greeley wrote a bunch of newspaper columns supporting someone else instead. Seward took the news well in public but felt humilated in private. He apparently said something about how fortunate it was he didn’t keep a diary because then there wasn’t a record of all of his cursing and swearing. He also said (more or less) that a well known guy will have numerous enemies and Lincoln as a comparative unknown didn’t have those yet.

Salmon P. Chase: former senator and governor, lost three wives early and young and then gave up (occasionally seems to have letter flirtations but nothing comes of them), so he focused on his oldest surviving daughter Kate as his hostess, everyone loved her. (Especially the author.) Chase was Not A Fun Guy. “He seldom told a story without spoiling it,” and had very little sense of humor. He basically had a Burr/Theodosia situation going on with Kate--he had her well trained, nitpicked her. “She did everything in her power,” her biographers suggest, “to fill the gaps in his life so that he would not in his loneliness see another Mrs. Chase.” “She became his surrogate wife.” (Ew.) He was more of a self-righteous prig, but was committed to antislavery principles. He was not a great speechmaker, felt he deserved the presidency, had “presidential fever” and honestly believed he owed it to the country and the country owed it to him that he should be president. Chase refused to campaign except for writing a bunch of letters to his supporters saying that he was the best man for the job. “Listening only to what he wanted to hear, discounting trouble signs.” And right there we see why he never won. Chase was the kind of guy who was never happy and was always brooding and sulking. He came from a dour family that went broke when he was a kid, he was abused by his tyrant uncle (named “Philander”, what is with the names in this family?), and later Chase himself got fired from a teaching job for beating his students. He also had a terrible voice and hated his “fishy” name.

Chase was a hero in the antislavery community for fending off a riot attack against an Ohio abolitionist, James G. Birney. “As time went by, however, Chase could not separate his own ambition from the cause he championed. The most calculating decisions designed to forward his political career were justified by advancements of the cause.” Chase didn’t think the two races could live together and that separation was in everyone’s best interests (for colonization), but as long as they’re here, he champions fighting discrimination.

Election errors: Chase was convinced that people would flock to him when they understood his position, had no campaign manager to bargain and maneuver for him, didn’t really focus on getting support, turned down giving a lecture, didn’t even confirm that his state delegates would vote for him. “Indeed, his sole contribution to his own campaign was a series of letters to various supporters and journalists around the country, reminding them that he was the best man for the job.” He even bragged that he will have nobody to push or act for him at Chicago except his state’s delegation. He was oblivious that anyone else would get support. Ohio did not unite behind him, Chase never reconciled with enemies so that came back to haunt him-the other delegates didn’t want to give him their votes. “Nor had Chase learned from his mistakes four years earlier. Once again, he failed to appoint a set of trusted managers who could guide his campaign, answer objections, cajole wavering delegates, and, at the right moment, make promises to buoy supporters and strengthen wills. “There are lots of good feeling afloat here for you,” one of Chase’s friends told him, “but there is no set of men in earnest for you…I think the hardest kind of death to die is that occasioned by indecisive, or lukewarm friends.”

Chase was hella pissed at Ohio and bitter in losing and was tortured over Ohio for years. So, fun guy!!!!

Edward Bates (former congressman). Very happily married to Julia, 17 kids, super happy snuggly wuggly home life. Well loved. Dressed like a Quaker. Happy guy. Very domestic. Recruited to run for president by Frank Blair. Thought he could come in second. Not an official Republican, but…eh….? Threw a lot of parties as a campaign, I guess. Bates owned slaves and thought blacks were inferior, but opposed slavery expansion. He gradually warmed to the idea of running, but was conflicted about joining politics and probably wouldn’t have gone along with it without a family known as the Blairs encouraging him. He never left his home state to promote himself, hell, he hardly ever left his house. He never really got what he should be doing about other people. When asked about his opinion about extending slavery into the territories, he said Congress had the power to decide the issue, the government ought to be against it, advocated equal constitutional rights for all citizens. Border states did not like this and ticked off the southern conservatives. “The attempt to pacify the anxious German-Americans had diminished his hold on what should have been his natural base, without bringing a commensurate number of Republicans to his side.” He wasn’t really middle of the party-too conservative for liberals. He also didn’t have a lot of politician friends to support him at the nomination-people dropped him easily because they barely knew him.

Bates took the loss calmly-said he was surprised but not mortified. “I had no claim-literally none-upon the Republicans as a party, and no right to expect their party honors….So far from feeling beaten and depressed, I have cause rather for joy and exultation; for, by the good opinion of certain eminent Republicans, I have gained much in standing and reputation before the country-more, I think, than any mere private man I have ever known.” Privately in his journal he admitted to being irritated. “Some of my friends who attended the Convention assure me that the nomination of Mr. Lincoln took every body by surprise: That it was brought about by accident or trick, by which my pledged friends had to vote against me.” He claims some Germans scared Indiana into submission and that if they voted for Bates, they would bolt. He said the party will realize they have committed a fatal blunder.

The election: Seward held the lead at the start, followed by Chase and Bates. “Lincoln’s strategy was to give offense to no one. He wanted to leave the delegates “in a mood to come to us, if they shall be compelled to give up their first love.”

“There was little to lead one to suppose that Abraham Lincoln, nervously rambling the streets of Springfield that May morning, who scarcely had a national reputation, certainly nothing to equal any of the other three, who had served but a single term in Congress, twice lost bids for the Senate, and had no administrative experience whatsoever, would become the greatest historical figure of the nineteenth century.”

“Even as a child, Lincoln dreamed heroic dreams. From the outset he was cognizant of a destiny far beyond that of his unlettered father and hardscrabble childhood. “He was different from those around him,” the historian Douglas Wilson writes. “He knew he was unusually gifted and had great potential.”

“Lincoln already possessed the lifelong dream he would restate many times in the years that followed-the desire to prove himself worthy, to be held in great regard, to win the veneration and respect of his fellow citizens.” When Lincoln was depressed after temporarily breaking up with Mary, he said he was more than willing to die, except he had “done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived, and that to connect his name with the events transpiring in his day and generation and so impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man was what he desired to live for.” “Even in this moment of despair, the strength of Lincoln’s desire to engrave his name in history carried him forward.”

“Conscious of his superior powers and the extraordinary reach of his mind and sensibilities, Lincoln had feared from his earliest days that these qualities would never find fulfillment or bring him recognition among his fellows. Periodically, when the distance between his lofty ambition and the reality of his circumstances seemed unbridgeable, he was engulfed by tremendous sadness.” HEAR HEAR.

Lincoln got more notoriety after the Kansas-Nebraska Act debates. He said the Constitution never mentioned slavery because the founding fathers were stuck with it at the time, but had hopes of removing it. “For the first time in his public life, his remarkable array of gifts as historian, storyteller, and teacher combined with a lucid, relentless, yet always accessible logic.” Also, “In order to “win a man to your cause,” you must first reach his heart, “the great high road to his reason.”

The usual question: was Lincoln a bigot? The author says, “There is no way to penetrate Lincoln’s personal feelings about race. There is, however, the fact that armies of scholars, meticulously investigating every aspect of his life, have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry on his part. Even more telling is the observation of Frederick Douglass, who would become a frequent public critic of Lincoln’s during his presidency, that of all the men he had met, Lincoln was “the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color.” Which is telling when you think of the dozens of abolitionists he had met. Lincoln entered himself in the middle-against expanding slavery but not for banning it where it was contained, which is what the moderate majority was going for. He thought it would become extinct slowly as long as it was restricted.

Lincoln did well because he had his debates with Douglas published, spoke at gatherings while Seward was touring Europe, and capitalized on that. Why did Lincoln win over the rest? He was best prepared at the opportunity, his nomination was a combination of the result of his character and life experiences and that gave him advantages. He was more accustomed to relying upon himself to do things rather than his privileged rivals. He toured the country (as opposed to Seward touring Europe), he lectured at Cooper Union (Chase turned it down and refused to travel also) and showed himself as worthy to Seward’s home territory. Lincoln’s native caution worked well for him, something the rest didn’t have. Lincoln also remained consistent while the others were trying to placate or change or tick others off. He connected with the common people (Chase had no way to do that and Bates stayed distant too). Also, the venue was in Illinois. He had friends but no enemies like Seward. He made friends with potential rivals and created friendships with them (Chase-heck no). Lincoln also wasn’t petty or malicious. Chase was obsessed with the office, Seward tended to wards opportunism, Bates was ambivalent. Lincoln had ambition, but he didn’t lose his niceness.

Edwin M. Stanton: This guy was kind of a lulu. His wife and daughter died young, he had his wife buried in a wedding dress, couldn’t work for months, and would search for her in the house crying. Then his brother died randomly. Stanton went depressed and nuts for a while, but eventually remarried and had more kids.

Lincoln first met Edwin Stanton when he got asked to join a legal case Stanton was on, and then both Stanton and the other guy heading up the case ignored him in court, with Stanton saying, “Why did you bring that d----d long armed Ape here…he does not know anything and can do you no good.” They very rudely ignored him the entire time, but Lincoln still hung around to hear the case, was super impressed by Stanton’s speech and it inspired him to go home and study law.

Amazingly, six years later Lincoln hired Stanton as secretary of war, because he was great at not having personal vendettas, and Stanton came to love and respect Lincoln. Go figure.

And speaking of no vendettas....after winning the nomination, Lincoln made friends with his rivals. He wrote Chase a very nice letter and got him to speak on his behalf in public. A friend of Lincoln’s got Bates on board for supporting and praising Lincoln.

After the election, Lincoln wrote down the 7 names he wanted for the cabinet. Seward, Chase, Bates, Montgomery Blair, Gideon Welles, Norman Judd, William Dayton. Seward said he wasn’t interested in being secretary of state until Lincoln sent him a personal letter. Bates originally claimed he’d decline being attorney general, but was the easiest to persuade. Lincoln originally offered Simon Cameron the secretary of the treasury job until he found out that Cameron was awful, then offered it to Chase. Chase turned it down but Lincoln had him nominated to the Senate and kind of forced him into it. Seward wanted Chase dropped and tried to withdraw, Lincoln talked him out of it.

“In the end, Lincoln had unerringly read the character of Chase and slyly called Seward’s bluff. Through all the countervailing pressures, he had achieved the cabinet he wanted from the outset-a mixture of former Whigs and Democrats, a combination of conciliators and hard-liners. He would be the head of his own administration, the master of the most unusual cabinet in the history of the country.”

“While it was possible that his team of rivals would devour one another, Lincoln determined that “he must risk the dangers of faction to overcome the dangers of rebellion.” He said he wanted the strongest men of the party in the cabinet.

Anyway, pretty much everyone in the Cabinet hated each other. “Chase considered Smith “a cypher” and Bates “a humdrum lawyer.” Seward was furious when Chase and Bates insisted on two appointments in his own district and stated that would be “humiliating” to him. Everyone resented Seward’s privilege and how much he hung out with Lincoln. They demanded regular cabinet meeting times, which Lincoln agreed to. Seward also informed a German diplomat at some point that “there was no great difference between an elected president of the United States and an hereditary monarch.”

Opinions on the war: Seward: thought it’d be a quick war with an easy resolution. Bates: wanted a limited war that “to disturb as little as possible the accustomed occupations of the people,” including Southern slaveholding. Blair: agreed with Bates. Lincoln: saving the union is an even larger purpose than ending slavery.

And then there’s God help us all, Mary Lincoln. Julia Taft was a teenage girl whose brothers were friends with the Lincoln boys, so she hung out with Mary a lot. “Despite Julia’s great affection for Mary, she was stunned by the first lady’s overbearing need to get “what she wanted when she wanted it,” regardless of how others might be hurt or inconvenienced. At one point Mary demanded the purple strings off of Julia’s mom’s bonnet in public. Whaaat? She was super insecure and had the awkward situation of having a bunch of relatives in the Confederate Army, so she was hated in the South and not trusted in the North.

She wanted to be the most elegant lady in Washington, so she got obsessed with fixing up the once again run down White House. The president was allotted $20,000 to maintain the White House, so she bought a lot of nice furniture on credit and basically used up the entire amount for four years in less than a year. She covered this up by getting John Watt, the White House groundskeeper, to inflate his expense accounts and funnel the extra money over to her. She tried to get John Hay to make her the White House steward, but “I told her to kiss mine,” Hay joked- so she tried to get him fired for that. He called her the Hell-Cat. When she finally ran out of money, she had to suck it up, tell her husband, and beg him to ask for more money. Lincoln thought this sounded terrible when soldiers were too broke for blanketes and said he would “never approve the bills for flub dubs for that damned old house!” and said he’ll pay for it out of his own salary. Someone else managed to talk a congressman into hiding a deficiency appropriation in a complex list of military appropriations. She continued to rack up bills anyway.

And oh lord, George B. McClellan. He came into town and started challenging General Scott right off. He wrote snitty letters to his wife like every day bitching about Scott and going on about how his destiny is to save the country and he “cannot respect anything that is in the way.” When Scott left the military, McClellan claimed that “hardly anyone” saw the guy off when he left, but in truth there was a large crowd at the depot in the rain at 5 a.m. Also when writing his wife, “McClellan told her that he received “letter after letter” begging him to assume the presidency or become a dictator. While he would eschew the presidency, he would “cheerfully take the Dictatorship and agree to lay down my life when the country is saved.” He was racist and blamed everyone else for his problems all the time.

Meanwhile, Lincoln was trying to keep the peace and tolerated McClellan’s doing shit like keeping him waiting “so long as he believed in [McClellan’s] positive influence on the army.” At one point when he, Seward and Hay went over to McClellan’s, they ended up waiting in his parlor for an hour for him to come home and then he just walked in, passed them by, and went to bed. Hay was furious, but Lincoln said it was better not to make points of etiquette and personal dignity right now. He didn’t care about slights as long as victory got achieved, that was his priority. Eventually Lincoln just summoned McClellan to the White House when he wanted him.

Just for fun, here’s a list of McClellan’s insults about everyone:

• Scott: perfect imbecile, dotard, traitor.
• Insults he said about the Cabinet:
• “some of the greatest gees… I have ever seen…enough to tax the patience of Job.”
• “meddling, officious, incompetent little puppy” (Seward)
• “weaker than the most garrulous old woman” (Welles)
• “an old food” (Bates)
• “rascality of Cameron”
• Did not “altogether fancy him” for Blair, though he hated him less. The only one he didn’t dog on was Chase, who wrote him some flattering letter at some point.
• Lincoln was called “the original gorilla.”

Meanwhile, Simon Cameron wasn’t doing well as the head of the War Department. He was terrible with organization details and plans, he just wrote things on random papers and then lost them, and finally when he had to turn in an annual report, he used it to advocate arming slaves. Lincoln wasn’t cool with that (it’s MY decision, not yours, thanks) and wanted that section deleted and wanted all copies of the report seized. Cameron agreed to delete it but pointed out that Welles said the same thing in his report...which Lincoln allowed. Eventually Lincoln decided to fire Cameron and replace him with Stanton, who’d been coming off pretty well to Lincoln. He originally decided to transfer Cameron to be the minister to Russia (shit job!), and it maked Cameron cry. After Cameron begged for help from Seward and Chase, Lincoln eventually agreed to just say that Cameron quit, preserving his rep until the House Committee on Contracts wrote up an 1,100 -page report in 1862 talking about the excessive corruption in the War Dept. that led to the purchase of malfunctioning weapons, diseased horses, and rotten food. Cameron was censured by the House for conduct highly injurious to the public service. Lincoln wrote a long public letter to Congress taking equal responsibility with Cameron for the errors.

Stanton cleaned up the War Dept. Cameron would take weeks to deal with letters, Stanton dealt with them first thing in the morning. They closed to un-military business Tuesdays through Fridays. Congressmen/senators could come over on Saturdays and general public on Mondays. He removed Cameron’s staff, and refused to put a guy Mary wanted on staff. Not only that, he actually got her to back down and agree to never ask him for anything again (!) by pointing out that you don’t want to hire unqualified people just for favors. GO STANTON! Stanton also didn’t react well to being forced to wait around and after having to wait for an hour for McClellan, he finally said, “That will be the last time General McClellan will give either myself or the President the waiting snub.” A few weeks later Stanton forced the telegraph office to be transferred from McClellans’s HQ to a room next to his in the War Dept. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

McClellan was now blaming Stanton for the Peninsula defeat, calling him “the most unmitigated scoundrel I ever knew, heard or read of” and basically says he would horrify Judas Iscariot. Oh brother. Even though he thought that the secretary read all his private telegrams, that didn’t seem to shame him one bit.

Meanwhile, McClellan continued to be a total hypocrite, writing a letter to Lincoln saying that Lincoln has been a kind true friend to him, and he kept promising to make moves and never did it. McClellan came down with typhoid and since he hadn’t told anyone his “future plans” at all (he claimed that he didn’t think Lincoln could keep a secret), time was wasted. Lincoln originally thought that as a non-military man it was his duty to defer to McClellan, but started reading up on military strategy.

Meanwhile, Kate Chase’s romance with young millionaire William Sprague was going afoul, as someone sent him some nasty letters saying she had a dalliance with a young married man when she was sixteen. “Though Sprague was guilty of far greater indiscretions himself, having fathered a child during his twenties….” He got all judgy pants and broke off the relationship.

Lincoln was originally in favor of colonization for black people as a solution to the social issues of the day, until he made friends with Frederick Douglass and met other black soldiers who told him why that wasn’t a good idea.

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(Here endeth the written nicely portions of this review, halfway through.)

Mary visits soldiers in the hospital and doesn’t publicize her efforts. Good for her.

Emancipation Proclamation: several of the cabinet dudes have reservations or think it’s going to cause too much drama if he does it. Chase is the most committed abolitionist and he thinks it’s totally dangerous and will lead to massacres. (Also, he still wants to be president and stay in with the radical Republicans).

Lincoln kinda gets ripped a new one for not getting that black people don’t want colonization. “Though he had tried to put himself in the place of blacks and suggest what he thought was best for them, his lack of contact with the black community left him unaware of their deep attachment to their country and sense of outrage at the thought of removal. In time, Lincoln’s friendship with Frederick Douglass and personal contact with hundreds of black soldiers willing to give up their lives for their freedom would create a deeper understanding of his black countrymen that would allow him to cast off forever his thoughts of colonization.”

Frances Seward on Lincoln’s saying that his goal is to preserve the union and whether or not he frees slaves is solely based on saving the union: “he gives the impression that the mere keeping together a number of states is more important than human freedom.” I agree.

The cabinet wants McC out and write up a document to that effect. They wait until Seward’s on vacation to announce this. Lincoln was distressed at this and according to Bates, he “said he felt almost ready to hang himself.”

Frederick Douglass on Lincoln: “Abraham Lincoln may be slow…but Abraham Lincoln is not the man to reconsider, retract and contradict words and purpose solemnly proclaimed over his official signature.”

McC wants to demand that Stanton be fired and Halleck give him his old place back. He also hates the Emancipation Proclamation. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he resigns! Writes a snotty letter of protest to Lincoln, even though his friends warn him not to send it. Okay, fine, he doesn’t send it. “McClellan had overestimated his newfound clout. Though Stanton and Chase were so discouraged by the general’s apparently unassailable position that they both considered resigning, Lincoln had made another private decision. If McClellan did not mobilize in pursuit of General Lee, which, as September gave way to October, he showed no sign of doing, he would be relieved from duty.” Lincoln has Halleck telegraph McC a message that HE NEEDS TO MOVE NOW WHILE THE ROADS ARE GOOD. “Weeks went by, however, and McClellan found all manner of excuses for inaction-lack of supplies, lack of shoes, tired horses. At this last excuse, Lincoln could no longer contain his irritation. “Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?” Bwahahahahah. After the midterm elections are over and the Republicans lose a bunch of seats, Lincoln relieves McC of his command of the Army of the Potomac. FINALLY.

Seward gets targeted by all the Republican senators, blaming everything they don’t like on him, apparently, and they think he’s the man running what Lincoln says/puppeteer. They want to demand he be removed. One guy (Senator Preston King) lets Seward know what’s going on and Seward says, “They may do as they please about me, but they shall not put the President in a false position on my account.” So he writes out his resignation and has King deliver to the WH. Lincoln is horrified and King tells about how everyone has “a thirst for a victim.” Lincoln walks over to Seward’s house and realizes this is more about how they want to strike out at him rather than Seward. He meets with the Committee of Nine (men selected to tell him this) to let them vent for 3 hours. He comes up with a plan-calls every cabinet member but Seward to a meeting and then tells them about the situation. He doesn’t want to lose anyone. “Knowing that, when personally confronted, the cabinet members would profess that they had worked well together, Lincoln proposed a joint session later that evening with the cabinet and the Committee of Nine. Presumably, they would disabuse the senators of their notions of disunity and discord in the cabinet.”

However, Chase was the one who had badmouthed everyone to the senators, and he feels very nervous about this. He tries to dissuade everyone from this joint meeting, but is overruled by everyone else. At the meeting, Chase has to cave in, and after five hours of open conversation (jeebus), Lincoln manages to get five out of nine to change their minds on wanting Seward gone. The meeting adjourns at 1 a.m. Senators are pissed at Chase and figure out he lied. In Lincoln’s opinion, Chase was forced to tell the truth at that meeting. Welles, Stanton, and Blair decide they want to keep Seward. But how does Lincoln deal with the public knowledge that Seward wanted to resign? Chase decides to hand in his own resignation, that’s how. Lincoln is pleased and decides that the trouble is ended. Whaaat? After kicking the dudes out of his house, he writes Seward and Chase a letter saying that the public interest requires both of them to stay in office. Chase still wants to quit, but feels like he has to stay at this point. Seward tries to make peace by inviting Chase over for Christmas dinner, but Chase declines. Lincoln is proud of himself Mary thinks “There was not a member of the Cabinet who did not stab her husband and the Country daily,” except for Blair.

After signing the Emancipation Proclamation: “When Joshua Speed next came to visit, Lincoln reminded his old friend of the suicidal depression he had suffered two decades earlier, and of his disclosure that he would gladly die but that he “had done nothing to make any human being remember he had lived.” Now, indicating his Emancipation Proclamation, he declared: “I believe that in this measure…my fondest hopes will be realized.”

“All his life, Lincoln had exhibited an exceptionally sensitive grasp of the limits set by public opinion. As a politician, he had an intuitive sense of when to hold fast, when to wait, and when to lead.” If he’d done it 6 months earlier, public sentiment would not have sustained it, he said. “In other words, the North would not fight to end slavery, but it would and did fight to preserve the Union. Lincoln had known this and realized that any assault on slavery would have to await a change in public attitudes.” Likewise, he waited for it be more socially acceptable to bring blacks into the military. If you try to force the pear tree, he may spoil both fruit and tree, “but let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap!” Although he knew that opposition would still be fierce, he believed it was no longer “strong enough to defeat the purpose.”

Lincoln’s jokes: Story about women making belts with engraved mottoes to give their lovers before going into battle. One suggested “liberty or death!” and the guy thought that was “rather strong” and couldn’t she make it “liberty or be crippled” instead? Another joke: Lincoln’s response to a guy who waited for weeks to get a pass to Richmond. “I would be very happy to oblige you, if my passes were respected: but the fact is, sir, I have, within the past two years, given passes to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to Richmond, and not one has got there yet.” Mary held séances at the White House to contact her kids (mostly Willie). Lincoln has to go to one and the host greets him by saying he was expected. He’s all, “Expected? Why, it is only five minute since I knew that I was coming.” He wasn’t particularly into it except as a means of entertainment-at one point he asked the head of the Smithsonian to figure out how they made noises during the séance. Regarded it as a theater performance.

Meanwhile, Chase is, as usual, miserable. “I have neither love nor taste for the position I occupy, and have only two great regrets connected with it-one, that I ever took it; the other, that having resigned it I yielded to the counsels of those who said I must resume it.”

Lincoln appoints Hooker, writes him a letter complimenting him but also saying he thwarted General Burnside and did him a great wrong. Hooker is totally fine with that, “It is a beautiful letter, and, although I think he was harder on me than I deserved, I will say that I love the man who wrote it.”

Chase wants to resign a THIRD time in five months, jeebus. (2nd time, he got annoyed when Lincoln decided not to renominate one of Chase’s appointees and said he couldn’t do the job if he didn’t have the authority, Lincoln placated him again.) Third time, Lincoln removes an appointee of Chase’s who was accused of land speculation, Chase once again wants him to RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAE (seriously) and if the president can’t do that, he’ll quit again. Lincoln explains why and placates him once again. Though yeah, he has sold more than $45 mil in bonds and is really getting the finances to work. “Even as Lincoln deferred to Chase, however, he placed his prickly secretary’s third resignation letter on file for future reference.”

Monty Blair resents Chase, called Seward “an unprincipled liar,” Stanton “a great scoundrel,” thought everyone but Welles and maybe Bates should be replaced and his father should be in. (eye-roll)

People are still pissy during cabinet meetings-some people show up infrequently and/or don’t say much and/or have private conferences with Lincoln that annoy others. (Mostly Stanton and Seward.) Bates grumbles that they have no mutual confidence. They don’t really get to deliberate, waaaah.

Lincoln sounds like he was pretty much rolling his eyes at a lot of the bitching of military people. “The world will not forget that you fought the battle of “Stone River” and it will never care a fig whether you rank Gen. Grant on paper, or he so, ranks you.” He said to General Rosecrans when he was bitching about his request for a higher rank was denied.

“As he was forced to deal with quarreling generals on almost every front, it is little wonder that Lincoln developed such respect and admiration for Ulysses S. Grant.” (Though he did have a problem with Grant banning all Jews from his department when he was trying to stop peddlers from illegally profiteering in cotton, with no provision for individual anything and forced them to leave within 24 hours and leaving their stuff behind.) Halleck was told to tell Grant this was canceled, and he phrased it as this: “the President has no objection to your expelling traitors and Jew peddlers, which, I suppose, was the object of your order; but, as it in terms proscribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it.”

Rumors of Grant being a drunk make their way to Lincoln and Stanton, they send investigators to look into it and find out that his drinking isn’t interfering with his job. “Lincoln declared that if he could find the brand of whiskey Grant used, he would promptly distribute it to the rest of his generals!”

Lincoln felt bad for anyone who got sentenced to death for cowardice, he’d usually reduce their sentence to jail or hard labor. They’re already frightened enough. He’d only allow it when meanness or cruelty was shown. At one time he’s handed the case of a captain charged with peeking at a woman undressing and he jokes that the guy should be elevated to the peerage and dubbed “Count Peeper.”

1863: black regiments! Somewhere in heaven Laurens is thrilled! Lincoln considered black people to be the great available and yet unavailed of force, he thinks that seeing soldiers on the Missisippi would end the rebellion at once. Chase is pleased and brags that the president sees it much as he saw it 2 years ago. Douglass works on recruiting, even though black soldiers get less money and can’t be officers. The Confederate Congress passes an ordinance dooming to death every black soldier or white officer who commands them, which diminishes the appeal of this to black people. Douglass blames this on Lincoln for not speaking out against it, and he quits recruiting. Eventually Lincoln’s response it to order that he’ll execute a rebel soldier or put one into hard labor for every one that gets killed or enslaved by the Confederacy. (Douglass thought he did this a bit late.)

Douglass goes in to see Lincoln, having no idea if he’ll get a good reception or any reception for their first meeting. , but he’s welcomed in and recognized and Lincoln says he’s glad to see him and Douglass is super impressed. So he talks about the discrimination methods that are hampering his recruitments, Lincoln listens well, says giving them less pay seemed like a necessary concession to get employment, but at some point they will have equal pay, he’s happy to commission black officers that the Secretary of War recommends, Douglass is impressed at how Lincoln justifies delaying the retaliatory order until the public mind was prepared for it. If he acted earlier before black people distinguished themselves in battle, he thought the public would outcry against it. Douglass disagrees but respects Lincoln’s concerns. He admits he’s slow, but once he takes a position, he doesn’t retreat from it. Douglass says he felt as though he could put his hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. Awwww.

Douglass meets with Stanton later and recalls that Stanton seems like an abrupt dude with no time to waste on people, but once you get to know him, Stanton stopped being so suspicious and brusque and promises that justice will ultimately be done, he’s imploring Congress to remove the discriminatory wage, Stanton makes him an offer to be an assistant adjutant general but he declines. President that receives a black man happily in the WH? Who woulda thunk?

Welles is nicknamed Neptune and Stanton is nicknamed Mars by Lincoln.

Stanton and Lincoln are opposites-secretive vs open. Lincoln would give a lot of chances, Stanton cut off heads, Lincoln was calm and Stanton was riled over anything, But they worked together well. At one point a guy tells Lincoln that Stanton called him a damned fool and Lincoln says if he said it, he must be right because he’s nearly always right and generally says what he means! Stanton ends up admiring Lincoln and how capable he is, and says that he and his partner were deceived in Cincinnati during that trial they dissed him at.

Stanton believed that god is permitting this war for some purpose of his own even though they can’t figure it out yet.

Chase and Stanton used to be good buds, but Chase kinda gets squeezed out as Stanton and Lincoln become close. He hates being close to the action but not in it, and he just keeps hoping he can get the presidential nomination (especially since single term presidencies seem to be the norm these days). Chase is in the Radical faction. People thought it was kinda disingenuous for him to be secretly pursuing it while in the cabinet. He would approach potential supporters without expressly saying he’d run. Wrote tons of letters to bigwigs complaining about the failures of the Lincoln administration. (Which you’re a member of, bub.) Then he’d go on about how much better he’d be, deny that he wanted the position, but if others wanted him to, he’d do it. He cultivated the press as well. Lincoln knew about all of this (people kept warning him) and Lincoln just found it amusing. He said it was in bad taste. “though the matter did not annoy him his friends insisted that it ought to.” He’d rather let Chase have his own way than get into a fight and refuse him what he wants-and also he’s doing a good job supporting the army. Bates’s comment was “it is of the nature of ambition to grow prurient, and run off with its victim.” Chase doesn’t care.

Kate Chase is engaged! Social event of the decade! Chase is feeling sad. Sprague apparently has a drinking problem and Kate is going around crying and pondering not going through with it. People seriously wonder if she’s marrying him to get money for her dad, she’s totally daddy’s girl, Sprague isn’t that attractive other than his money. Mary doesn’t show up and Lincoln shows right before the ceremony (one presumes he was spending his time trying to talk her into going).

Lincoln comes down with a mild case of smallpox and snarks, “For the first time since I have been in office, I have something now to give to everybody who calls.”

Lincoln’s beloved brother in law Benjamin dies, his widow Emilie (Mary’s sister) is invited to stay at the White house. She gets a pass to go through the lines to Kentucky, but when she arrives at Fort Monroe they want her to swear an oath of allegiance to the US and she refuses. The officials send Lincoln a telegram and he says “send her to me.” So they do. Lincoln tries to keep her visit hidden, but people find out and are ticked. Emilie isn’t afraid to snipe back about the war either. Emilie eventually leaves.

Chase apparently has some penpal girlfriends but never really makes their relationships any deeper than that.

The Pomeroy Committee distributes a circular around to Republicans for Chase-it critiques the hell out of Lincoln and then supports Chase. When it leaks to the press, it creates a political explosion. Lincoln’s friends were furious. Chase sends Lincoln a panicked letter claiming no knowledge of this. This book claims that yes, Chase knew and “it is unlikely that Lincoln believed Chase’s protestations of innocence.” Lincoln as careful about his response-he’d let it play out a little longer, has Chase wait, watches people’s reactions. People do not react well to the circular. The Times said: “This power of attracting and holding popular confidence springs only from a rare combination of qualities. Very few public men in American history have possessed it in an equal degree with Abraham Lincoln.” This convinced Ohio to go to Lincoln! After this, Lincoln tells Chased he’d heard about this circular for a few weeks, but didn’t intend to hold Chase responsible for it, he didn’t plan on replacing him. A few days later, Chase withdraws his presidential bid. “By regulating his emotions and resisting the impulse to strike back at Chase when the circular first became known, he gained time for his friends to mobilize the massive latent support for his candidacy. Chase’s aspirations were crushed without Lincoln’s direct intrusion.”

Lincoln was an avid theatergoer, so was Seward. Chase and Bates considered that a waste of time, Stanton only went once to try to get ahold of Lincoln for something. (Literally grabbed Lincoln by the collar to force him to look at him. Lincoln continued to be nice but kept trying to look at the stage and Stanton eventually gave up.)

The assistant treasurer of NY quits, Chase nominates Maunsell Field (who has no financial or political standing, he’s a journalist by trade, this is a quid pro quo thing). He assumes Lincoln will approve it, but Lincoln says he can’t because Senator Edwin Morgan (who’s been complaining about Chase’s friends all getting jobs) really objects-could you both confer and pick a candidate you both agree with? Chase demands a personal interview with Lincoln and Lincoln refuses to (the problem isn’t going to be solved with a conversation between the two of us, he doesn’t want Morgan to openly revolt if he gets disregarded). Chase ONCE AGAIN WRITES HIS FOURTH LETTER OF RESIGNATION, ASSUMING HE WON’T GET CANNED, wanking on that he doesn’t feel like his position is agreeable to Lincoln, the job is filled with embarrassment now, it’s his duty to resign. Lincoln gets the FOURTH ONE, interprets this as “I want apology for your behavior and you to beg me to stay,” and accepts his resignation forthwith, saying “you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems can not be overcome, or longer sustained, consistently with the public service.”

Chase finds this out when it’s announced in the Senate and a Senator asks him what happened. When the Senate Finance Committee comes over to see Lincoln and object, he pulls out all of Chase’s resignation letters and said that “Mr. Chase has a full right to indulge in his ambition to be President,” but the indiscretions of Chase’s friends have made things so complicated that they no longer like to meet in person much and Chase is avoiding meetings. This is just the last straw. Lincoln’s views on Chase: “It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to fall into a bad habit. Chase has fallen into two bad habits…He thinks he has become indispensable to the country…He also thinks he ought to be President; he has no doubt whatever about that.” These two tendencies have made Chase “so that he is never perfectly happy unless he is thoroughly miserable.” That said, he’d be happy to make Chase Chief Justice if he likes. William Pitt Fessenden gets the job. Fessenden freaks out and doesn’t WANT the job, Lincoln says he won’t recall the nomination and if you decline you have to do it in public. Everyone gives him good wishes and he goes on about how he thinks the job will be the death of him. Stanton is all, “you cannot die better than in trying to save your country.” Next day Fessenden heads to the WH with his letter declining the nomination, but Lincoln says the crisis demands any sacrifice, even life itself. So he gets the job. Chase has the sads, but the cabinet is not sorry to see him go. Welles said he looked upon it as a blessing. Stanton was the only one who said goodbye.

Kate’s marriage isn’t going well-she held the upper hand during courtship but he’s got it now that they’re married, he rebukes her for spending, he’s not treating her like a partner, he doesn’t want her to talk about politics or business, and he drinks.

Douglass thinks Lincoln is saying that he can’t carry on the war for the abolition of slavery, the country wouldn’t sustain and Congress wouldn’t support it. Lincoln considered him a friend. “He treated me as a man; he did not let me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the color of our skins! The President is a most remarkable man. I am satisfied now that he is doing all that circumstances will permit him to do.”

Now Blair and Stanton are now fighting in the cabinet. Blair is not getting on with the radicals. Blair thinks Stanton is in league against his family and the president. Called him a liar and a thief. When Stanton hears about this, he refuses to go to cabinet meetings if Blair is present. Lincoln told them all to stop criticizing each other in public, and he decides to take Blair up on his offer to resign-he asks him to resign, telling him that the time has come. Blair was surprised, saying his head was decapitated.

Lincoln was loved by soldiers-he visited them, sat with wounded, told them funny stories, an estimated quarter million or more had some glimpse of him was estimated by historian William Davis, plus he pardoned a lot of soldiers. Soldiers were allowed in 1865 to vote by proxy or cast absentee ballots (except for a few states that required them to be in their towns on Election Day). Lincoln gets Sherman to liberally grant furloughs for that.

Stanton felt compelled to protect military discipline by punishing people, while Lincoln looked for any excuse to pardon them. One time a clerk mentioned seeing Stanton after he had to order a soldier to be shot as deserter, as his mother, wife, and children were crying and begging him on their knees. He walked into his private room and started sobbing “God help me to do my duty!” over and over again.

Lincoln defended Stanton to the hilt even though others found him difficult.

Bates resigns after the election-he’s getting old. Bates though Lincoln was very near a perfect man, he just lacked the element of will because he was easily touched by a sad story. Bates is replaced by Joshua Speed’s brother James.

Who’s going to be Chief Justice? That’s the only job Stanton ever wanted in his life. Buuuuut…. He’s needed in the War Dept. Blair also wants it, Lincoln thinks Blair would do a good job, but his enemies would get super bitchy about it and the radicals could deny confirmation. Same for Bates. Chase gets it! “I have only one doubt about his appointment. He is a man of unbounded ambition, and has been working all his life to become President. That he can never be; and I fear that if I make him chief-justice he will simply become more restless and uneasy and neglect the place in his strife and intrigue to make himself President. IF I were sure that he would go on the bench and give up his aspirations and do nothing but make himself a great judge, I would not hesitate a moment.” Chase has assumed the nomination is his all along, but a long time passes and there’s no word, so Chase goes to Washington to check. “Chase is, on the whole, a pretty good fellow and a very able man. His only trouble is that he has “the White House fever” a little too bad, but I hope this may cure him and that he will be satisfied.” Lincoln later tells Senator Chandler that personally he “would rather have swallowed his buckhorn chair than to have nominated Chase,” but the decisions was right for the country. Chase helps secure the rights of the black man and allows the first black lawyer to practice as a member of the Supreme Court.

As far as Mary Lincoln is concerned, she has to rack up debt to keep up with the Joneses and her husband will never be able to afford her need to keep up appearances. Owes $7000.

After Robert graduates from Harvard, it’s time for him to join up-but Lincoln asks Grant to put him into his military family.

Fearing that the Emancipation Proclamation might be discarded at the end of the war, Lincoln wants that Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery passed. People voted against party lines and it failed. He tries again in January 1865, wheeling and dealing and appealing to get votes. Enlists his friends in it. It finally passes-with 5 Democrats who changed their votes.

Lincoln wanted to reimburse people for slaves. The cabinet does not approve. Lincoln is sad, feels compelled to forsake the proposition, war goes on.

Andrew Johnson does his speech totally drunk and rambling for 20 minutes. Can’t recall the name of Welles. “Stanton looked like a petrified man,” Noah Brooks observed. “All this is in wretched bad taste,” Speed whispered to Welles. “The man is certainly deranged.” Welles whispered to Stanton that “Johnson is either drunk or crazy.” New postmaster general Dennison “was red and white by turns”, Justice Samuel Nelson’s jaw dropped. Seward remains serene, Lincoln just kept his eyes closed. Later said Johnson made a bad slip but wasn’t a drunkard. Uh-huh.

Douglass’s experience of the inauguration: he has a hard time getting in the door until he gets ahold of someone to tell Lincoln he’s here. Lincoln happily greets him in front of everyone and says there’s no man in the country whose opinion he values more than Douglass’s and how did he like the speech? He liked it!

“His political genius was not simply his ability to gather the best men of the country around him, but to impress upon them his own purpose, perception, and resolution at every juncture.” If he ever yielded to anyone else, it was because they convinced him.

On a presidential boat trip, General Ord’s wife Mary accompanies the President and Grant and Ord when they arrive earlier than Mary and Julia Grant (they’re following behind). Is it okay for her to do that without the other ladies? Oh, sure, come along. But when Mary sees them riding on parade, she starts calling Mrs. Ord vile names in public and making her cry. Mary will not be appeased, everyone is horrified. She continues to bitch at dinner. Mary ends up in her stateroom alone for the next few days. After her public outburst, she goes back to Washington. She apparently hits it off with Carl Schurz in the way back. “I learned more state secrets in a few hours than I could otherwise in a year,” he said. Dang.

People are worried about Lincoln’s life, he says he’d rather be dead than live in continual dread, and it’s essential that the people know he comes among them without fear.

Booth gets the idea to kill Lincoln after hearing him say he wants suffrage for blacks. “that is the last speech he will ever make.” Lincoln has a dream about his death, which he interprets as some other President dies and not him.

The plan is to kill Lincoln, Seward, and the vice president. Poor Seward-the whole family’s in the house when this happens. The attacker (Powell) shows up, insisting he needs to see Seward, and shoots his son Fred in the head. The gun misfires, but he got smacked in the head so bad that Fred’s skull was crushed in two places, exposing his brain and leaving him unconscious for the rest of the night. He breaks into Seward’s room and stabs him in the face and slashs son Gus in the head on his way out. Seward looked pretty dang dead but he wasn’t-he’d been in an accident recently and the knife was deflected by the contraption holding Seward’s broken jaw in place. “In bizarre fashion, the carriage accident had saved his life.” A Mr. Hansell also gets stabbed in the back. All the work of one man.

Meanwhile, George Atzerodt just stays home and gets drunk rather than kill Johnson.

Booth shoots Lincoln in the head, Henry Rathbone gets slashed in the chest for his trouble.

Bodyguards get sent to Chase’s house.

They don’t tell Seward, but he guesses what happened when Lincoln didn’t come to see him and he also sees the flag at half mast.

Tolstoy says Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world and was bigger than his country and all of the Presidents together. He’ll be even more impressive in a few centuries (true).

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other [ambition] so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rending myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed.” -Lincoln at age 23 in an open letter during his first bid for public office.

Epilogue:

• Seward and son Frederick eventually recover from their injuries, but six weeks after Frances Seward collapsed and died. Daughter Fanny gets tuberculosis and dies. “the assassin’s blows passed by the father and son fell fatally on the mother and daughter,” said the Washington Republican. Seward remains SoS through Johnson’s term and buys Alaska, travel safter retirement.
• Stanton ends up in conflict with Johnson, Johnson asks for his resignation, Stanton barricades himself in his office for weeks and argues that his dismissal violated the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson’s ignoring it lead to his impeachment. Stanton finally resigns after the impeachment fails. Grant nominates him to the Supreme Court and then three days later he dies randomly.
• Bates remained with his family, happily.
• Chase runs for president again, Ohio wants another guy AGAIN, Chase changes parties and still can’t get nominated, finally just dies.
• Kate has an affair with Roscoe Conking (good god), which ends when they’re caught by Sprague and Sprague goe after Conkling with a shotgun. After Sprague tries to throw Kate out a window, she files for divorce, dies in poverty.
• Blairs returned to Democratic Party.
• Welles remains in the cabinet until 1868, goes home to write essays.
• Nicolay and Hay co-author a massive ten volume study of Lincoln.
• Mary loses her son Tad too, she ends up getting committed into a state hospital for the insane by Robert until she gets released. They end up permanently estranged.

QED: A Play

By Peter Parnell.

This play was inspired by the writings of Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton's "Tuva or Bust!" Once upon a time Alan Alda, like many of us, became captivated by Feynman and got the idea to do (and star in) some kind of play about him. Peter Parnell and Gordon Davidson were recruited to work on it, and they decided to figure out who Feynman was. It ended up taking them six years, according to Alda's foreword in this. They had no idea how hard it would be--what do you focus on with him? There's so many different aspects of the dude. At one point Alda suggested, "You know what we ought to do? We ought to write a play about three guys sitting around in a hotel room, trying to figure out a play about Feynman. They never figure it out. They just drive themselves crazy." In the end, Alda concluded that despite them coming up with a play, he never really found Feynman--"I came close, but he was too many things. He had too many histories." But hey, it made it to Broadway!

This play is a two-person show, taking place on one fictional Saturday a few years before his death. Feynman is the star onstage alone for most of it, recounting his various awesome adventures in one go as he juggles his starring role as "the Chief" in Bali Hai that night, incoming Russian visitors, arguing about the Challenger findings, frequent calls from his doctor urging him to get more medical treatment ASAP, and a persistent young (fictional) physics student named Miriam Field (the other character in the show) trying to drop by to chat about physics. It's one giant sandwich in a day. In the second act, Feynman's in full costume after the show (which sounds delightful) and Miriam finally gets allowed in the door to have some in-person conversation rather than just outside the door, and there's some flirting but it doesn't go anywhere (thankfully). 

• Wikipedia on the play
• Review of the play
• A conversation with the creators of the play.

"DWYER: The process seems to have gone very well for the three of you. How do you think it would have been if you’d had a fourth collaborator, if Feynman had been around?

DAVIDSON: He is around. He won’t leave us alone."

I don't really know how one reviews this exactly. It's a play and lord knows I didn't set up a framework to review a fictional play here, so it's in the closest category I have to "misc." It sounds like it's fun to watch. It certainly recounts all of your and my favorite Feynman bits and that tickles me. On the other hand, I don't know about the character of Miriam. Part of me is all "yay, it's showing that a woman can do physics too!" and the other part of me is all "oh, ugh, it's a young probably hot chick for him to flirt with while married, UNCOMFORTABLE." As far as I've been able to tell Feynman didn't play around while married, but still. She's not really a character so much as a placeholder for actual humans. I kinda wish an actual person in Feynman's life had made it to the play (see conversation link) instead, or it had stuck to a one person show which it mostly is...I don't know. Basically I'd give it 3.5 stars because I have to dock a star for the weirdness and weird feelings that "Miriam" brings out in me. Oh well. But otherwise, it sounds fun and I'd watch it if I could. 

Well, there's a little bit of it online.

Abraham Lincoln

By George McGovern.

I read three books on Lincoln, this was the shortest. Still pretty good, though.

“No man worked harder to make himself a success.” He was very ambitious and did the work for it.

“Lincoln believed that cold reason and logic could overcome any deficiency and would see him through any problem. He believed that his self-discipline could set an example for the country and that his devotion to the task would ultimately provide for victory. He grew into his job as president steadily, day by day, overcoming countless frustrations and obstacles and becoming a great leader.”

He realized he was intellectually gifted at an early age, and was rarely intimidated by others in that realm. He was not a public boaster, but knew he knew more than some people. He hardly read the news because he figured the writers knew less than he did. “It would be ridiculous, said some who knew him, to call him a modest man. He was supremely confident in his ability to analyze and solve any dilemma.”

“He understood the issues of the day so well that he found deeper meanings in the war that eluded others. Recognizing that the war was fought initially to preserve the Union, and later to free the slaves, he seamlessly combined the two causes into one.”

Lincoln quote from an early political election: “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same.” Isn’t that adorable? (He lost.)

Here’s the kind of thing that a lot of people who knew Lincoln said about him--it’s from some anonymous colleague. He was "raw-boned, angular, features deeply furrowed, ungraceful, almost uncouth...and yet there was a magnetism and dash about the man that made him a universal favorite."

"Abraham Lincoln was a political man. Today we picture him as a sober, serious-minded statesman of the highest order, but he was also a shrewd, masterful politician who knew and appreciated the tactical and strategic demands of down-to-earth politics."

Lincoln was always against slavery, but didn’t specifically consider himself an abolitionist (he was a big believer in slavery being constitutionally protected where it already existed), even though he said he probably hated it as much as they did. He wasn’t originally all that affected by it personally and originally figured God would sort it all out and all they had to do was wait. Hahahahahah. But after Kansas-Nebraska happened, he started studying up on it. He did become the leader of Illinois’ antislavery faction.

"Lincoln did  not support full equality for blacks; in fact, he went to great lengths to convince his audiences (particularly those in southern Illinois) that he did not support voting rights for blacks, and did not believe they should sit on juries or hold office. Neither was he in favor of amalgamation; just because he did not want a black woman for a slave, he said, did not necessarily mean that he wanted one for a wife. But he firmly believed, as did the founding fathers, that all Americans, regardless of color, were free to enjoy the fruits of their own labors." This pretty much makes him less of a bigot than everyone else at the time, I suspect.

However, much like Obama on gay marriage, Lincoln’s position evolved over time. He originally was balancing his dislike of slavery versus his interpretation of the Constitution saying that the federal government could not get rid of slavery in slave states. He was also originally into the idea of colonization, figuring that blacks and whites could never peacefully live together and black people would be happiest away from white people. However, between not being able to financially pull that off (even Andrew Jackson didn’t have the money to ship Indians off in style and he wouldn’t have had to get boats) and actually speaking with black people who said they didn’t want to leave home, he got over it.

He even became friends with Frederick Douglass, and if that guy could forgive him.... Douglass’s assessment of him was this: "Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery." He based his hatred of slavery on the perception of a slave as a person, not as a Negro. He also snarked, "Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself."

The original Republicans were a motley crew of former Whigs (where else were they going to go), Free-Soilers*, abolitionists, and whatever Democrats were antislavery.

* which sounds like people going to the bathroom outdoors wherever, doesn’t it?

Lincoln said that the only substantial dispute between the North and South was slavery. "We cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them...." He said all the authority of the president came from the people and they hadn't given him any (note: this was Buchanan’s POV at the time, but this changes during Lincoln’s term) to fix terms for the separation of the states. The people can do it if they want, but the executive has nothing to do with it, his duty is to administer the present government and transmit it to his successor. He also said no administrator could very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years, which sounds sweetly optimistic at this point in time to me.

But speaking of the president having enough powers, Lincoln took advantage of being a war president with expanded powers to do a lot of things. He set aside habeas corpus (judicial mandate ordering prison officials to bring an inmate before the court so the legality of the arrest can be determined) during the war, leading to 13,000+ citizens (mostly Southerners who were committing crimes) being arrested without it and tried in military courts. He also ordered a blockade of Southern ports and practiced various methods of censorship on the media to make sure that editors and publishers weren’t causing injury to the military. He also was the first president to authorize conscription.

"Lincoln never wavered in his devotion to save the Union. Every action he took was calculated to achieve that end. He did not act to gain personal renown; he did not stretch the limits of presidential power because he was interested in power per se. If he favored a liberal interpretation of the Constitution it was because he wanted to save the Constitution, and the country, from the chaos of secession. The sacred document so carefully crafted by the framers bestowed upon the executive great powers, to be used judiciously, in times of great crisis. This Lincoln understood better than anyone else."

The Emancipation proclamation was "the great event of the nineteenth century" for Lincoln (his words). It came about because the war gave him authority he never would have had in times of peace. "Lincoln came to believe that in cases of armed rebellion against the government, his powers as commander in chief had to be commensurate with those of any ruler whose country had been invaded." Also, "In this situation, the constitutional war powers of the president worked to override the constitutional protection for slavery." It was also a good strategy. Under the law of war, property of friends or enemies may be taken when needed. Emancipating the enemy's slaves had been an acceptable means of warfare for nearly 2 centuries in Europe. Slave labor was an essential component of the Confederate army, which forced slaves into service in support roles and then freed others up for combat duty. "Lincoln understood that any maneuver, including emancipation, that might hurt the enemy's chances of success was a legitimate military action." It also gave slaves incentive to fight for the union.

Lincoln’s famous quote on his aims: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help save the Union.”

He first announced this to his cabinet (which was notably a mix of independently minded former political rivals of his, we’ll get to that) in July 1862. He was already decided on what to do, but just getting opinions. Some were for, some were against or thought it should be put off or had no opinion. Eventually Lincoln was convinced by William Henry Seward to postpone doing it until there was a Union victory.

After General McClellan actually had a victory FOR ONCE at Antietam, Lincoln gave the rebel states 100 days to return to the union, or else their slaves would be freed for them. Of course they didn’t do that, so he issued the proclamation on January 1, 1863. At the time it didn’t have any immediate effect--it only applied to the rebelling states, slave owners ignored it, radicals thought it fell short and was hollow and meaningless (all you did was free slaves not under your control and not the ones who were!), and of course it ticked off the South. But the author says it fundamentally transformed the character of the war because it added a moral/humanitarian force to the union cause. Also it allowed acceptance of black men into union military and that union officers had no duty to return slaves to their masters. By the end of the war, nearly half a million slaves had made it to the North. At first they were only in support roles, but eventually got into support roles (200,000 of them). It marked the high point of the Civil War, and irrevocably committed the US government to termination of slavery. “I believe that in this measure my fondest hopes will be realized.” Lincoln said.

Then there’s General McClellan, who I’ve now read about in a few books and man, dude was such a turd. Basically, he had an attitude problem and didn’t actually want to fight. Which is actually putting it really mega super polite, but you'll see how bad he got in other readings. “McClellan was given every chance to prove his worth in two separate command stints, but his agonizing tactics of delay proved to be more than the patient Lincoln could bear.” As general-in-chief he was a “tentative fighter at best.” He had a huge ego, disdained civilian leadership, resented any advice he was offered, was openly critical of Lincoln, the cabinet, and members of Congress. He regularly overestimated the strength of the enemy, would rather drill his troops than go into battle. McClellan was loved by his men,  but a constant sense of frustration to Lincoln.

After months of delay, McClellan finally came up with a strategy to attack the Richmond capital, but he continued to complain. He didn’t have enough soldiers, couldn’t deal with confederate movements, fretted about losing lives, and his insecurities about his soldiers’ readiness and the size of the enemy led to more procrastination. He blamed others all the time. “He wrote the secretary of war: “You have done your best to sacrifice this army,” but the telegraph operator deleted the sentence from the rest of the message.”

In 1862 Lincoln took a more active role in managing military affairs--he read up on military theory, consulted with advisors, studied maps/charts, wanted info on everything, and he started formulating his own strategy. “The war would have to be fought if it was to be won, and Lincoln intended to win it.” He finally fired secretary of war Simon Cameron, who was “corrupt and ineffective” for being “selfish and openly discourteous” and he was “incapable of either organizing details or conceiving and advising general plans” and his service was “obnoxious to the Country.” What a lulu. He replaced him with Edwin Stanton, who did a lot better job.

In November 1862, barely one year into McClellan’s command, Lincoln decided that since McClellan wasn’t using his army, Lincoln would like to borrow it for awhile, and relieved him of duties. He tried out Ambrose Burnside (who got smashed at Fredericksburg) and Joseph Hooker (who brought the term “hookers” as a word for the prostitutes that were always following him around into our lexicon), but they weren’t really an improvement. But finally, he found Ulysses S. Grant, who may have been drinking, a sloppy dresser and ignoring basic military protocol, but he’d actually DO stuff. Lincoln said, “I can’t spare this man. He fights.” Reportedly when Lincoln was informed of Grant’s drinking habits, the president said: “Find out what he’s drinking and order it for my other generals.”

Eventually Lincoln expanded the idea of abolishing slavery and went to great lengths to convince people to vote for the 13th Amendment--offering jobs to people, twisting arms, calling in favors. And it got voted in, with three votes more than the bare minimum! Huzzah!

He was very tired by 1865. When a delegation of women overheard him laughing one day, they told him off for laughing while boys were dying on the battlefield. He said if he didn’t get the occasional laughter to break his sadness over the war, his heart would break. Awwww.

“He came to acknowledge, and even depend upon, a higher power; indeed, it seemed that the connection between Lincoln and the Almighty enabled him to take on the great challenges he faced as president. He saw himself as an instrument of God’s will; he had been charged with a “vast” and “sacred” trust, the responsibilities from which he “had no moral right to shrink.” Still, Lincoln did not expect that God would show him the way. “These are not…the days of miracles,” he said. “I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right.” He had to trust his own judgment as well as God’s. “In the present civil war,” he wrote, “it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party…He could give the final victory to either side any day-yet the contest proceeds.”

“For all his trials, Lincoln had become a masterful president. His political skills and powers of persuasion were unmatched. His self-confidence was strong, and he demonstrated great faith in his abilities and in the worthiness of his cause. The depth of his insight, and his ability to judge and inspire men, had transformed him into an extraordinary leader. Lincoln’s growth was unexpected, certainly, to most who knew him. But he had guided-and was guiding-the nation through unprecedented times, and he had a vision for the future.”

“In Lincoln we see the decency of popular government. Its role, then as now, was “to elevate the condition of men…to afford all, an unfettered start, in the race of life.” The war was a “People’s contest,” he said, because upon its outcome depended the proposition that the will of the majority must prevail. To him democracy was an experiment that the world had not seen before; it had been successfully established and administered, but now it had to be maintained against “a formidable attempt to overthrow it.”

I liked how this book gave a great rundown on how being a war president enabled Lincoln to make huge governmental changes--the author does a great job on that, as well as covering Lincoln’s personal evolvement. This is a good short rundown of the fellow, so four stars.

It's Cliffhanger Day!

I finished two books on the same day that have terrible anger-inducing cliffhangers! WHEE!!!!!!!!