Book Nook Cafe discussion

Since this isn't an offical monthly read, I am putting this under the Books folder.

Team of Rivals -- Conversation continued from AOL message board
Chapter 18

Barbara, I answered your McClellan post on AOL last night. I should have made a copy knowing aol might disappear, but alas I didn't.

I was wondering if you had read up to page 474-5 yet? These two pages sealed the deal for me. I was so furious I was scribbling away in the margins with a lot of exclamation points. :) Gosh it's only been about 150 years, you would think I still wouldn't be holding a grudge and getting all worked up. :)

Seriously, for McClellan to actively disobey orders, and put the Capital and troops in danger because he feared General Pope might be put in charge over him is the act of a traitor. His ego was out of control. I was so happy Stanton called him that. Chase even said he should be shot ! He also was hoping for Pope's failure. So he could remain top dog, and do things his way. That's not putting your country first. That's putting yourself first.

I'm only up to pg. 430.

In any case you can already see that McClellan thinks he is hot stuff. As I read I have been thinking what a tough time Lincoln had. I knew some of this stuff but probably read it 50 years or so ago and it doesn't effect you the same way when you are young. At least it didn't for me. I think you have had to live through managing some situations of your own life to realize how hard McClellan was making it for Lincoln.

I agree, Barbara. It's one thing to read this material when you are young & untried yourself. To read it now one truly appreciates the patience Lincoln showed, as well as the trials McClellan was putting him through.

deb

I've read about 625 pages and I am amazed at how little, if anything, we have read about the VP Hannibal Hamlin. He is never mentioned as taking part in meetings about the CV or anything else.

I thought it was interesting to read that Lincoln never even met Hamlin until they were already elected.

If the VP during that era was so insignificant, I wonder why they felt they had to change Abe's running mate.

I guess the author will get into that now as I am up to the part where they are talking about Abe's going for a second term.

Any thoughts on this ?

Alias, i was surprised at how little Hamlin is mentioned in the book. Now that you mention it, this is a deficit with the book. It seems the least she could have done was to explain why he wasn't a big factor in the cabinet. Even the Wiki bio isn't helpful, it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal...
Was he even in DC much? We get no sense of that in Goodwin's book.

deb

I am trying to read quickly, I don't think I missed it, but I also don't see any explantion of why or how Andrew Johnson was selected. I guess a bone to the Confederacy and they thought the election would be closer than it turned out to be.

I still would have liked Goodwin to explain what was up with Hamilin during the the CW. And if he had any power or even talked with Lincoln.

I had read before about Johnson showing up drunk for the inauguration in other books. Not a very auspicious way to start for him. True to form, Lincoln remained unruffled.

Without going into anything much in depth I think the selection of Johnson was purely because it is mentioned that he was the only Southern Senator who didn't defect to the Confederacy. It wasn't so much a bone to the Confederacy as a move to try to hold onto his state.

As to the Vice President-- it is only in modern really modern times that the Vice President is given tasks to do that in any way might effect policy. Harry Truman knew little of what was going on when he was thrust into the Presidency. So no -- Hamlin had no power and probably didn't even talk to Lincoln.
Goodwin probably thinks we know that the VP had no power whatsoever.

And since later on Johnson really turned around what Lincoln's plans had been for Reconstruction they clearly weren't on the same page either.

Bobbie57 wrote: " I think the selection of Johnson was purely because it is mentioned that he was the only Southern Senator who didn't defect to the Confederacy. ..."

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Good point, Barbara.

I finished Team Of Rivals today. I have to say the last 20 pages or so I read through ever increasing tears. Reading the eloquent quotes from so many people was quite moving.

Though I thought the book could have been cut down a bit, I think it was a marvelous in depth look at Lincoln and his cabinet. It's not a book that would recommend as your first overall look at Lincoln.

Since you are our resident Poetry Maven, Deborah, by any chance do you know the poem referred to on page 630 ?
"Sorrow had fled, but left her traces there."
I couldn't find an answer on the Internet.

I plan to start reading Lazy B next. No need for you to rush to pick it up, Deb, as I don't read as quickly as you. I need a change of pace before I begin to read our BNC monthly selection of Founding Brothers.

Alias, no, i couldn't find the poem referenced, either, but put it in my notes. I found it moving.

Are you like me & felt you needed a small parade to celebrate your completion? If so, i salute you, Alias! It was a massive work & you succeeded! Hurrah for you!

Given the initial taste of Seward in the book, i was amazed at how i came to respect him. I think his family helped keep him grounded, as well as the "people factor" he seemed to have. Quite unlike Chase! I didn't like him much from beginning to end, although i felt it unfortunate his daughter had such a rough end.

Barbara, thanks for the reminder about how insignificant the VP office was back then. I remember in ADAMS by McCullough it was pointed out that he was frustrated by the lack of duties & his own puzzlement as to what he should be doing.

Ready for LAZY B whenever you are, Alias. Again, congrats!

deborah

deborah: Ready for LAZY B whenever you are, Alias. Again, congrats!
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Thanks, and congrats to you, too, for finishing TOR. I think the book was well done. And I learned a lot.

I don't know how much reading I will get to this weekend. I have to do my taxes. However, I will put up a thread for the book. I'm sure I will read a little bit.

Gang, I am nearing the end of Team of Rivals - finally!!! I almost took it back yesterday with the last 50 to 75 pages unfinished. I had to pay a fine on it of $1.05....But....I am glad I stuck with it.

Lincoln has always been one of my favorite presidents but I actually find myself with not quite as much respect for him as before. He had an exceedingly messy administration and it took him forever to decide to "do something" about the problems in his administration - McClellan being the big one but also Chase. Chase was pretty despicable.

He did have the patience of Job though. I don't have that much with people. - Catsluvbooks

Cathy, I asked you if you finished TOR in another thread that I read before this one. I see now that you are done.

I found the second half of the book quite interesting. The last 100 pages were the best, imo.

I sort of liked that Lincoln was loyal and took his time with a decision. Though I agree, McClellan drove me insane. And Abe was a little too patient with him.

Alias

Cathy, you make a good point about Lincoln's slow decision making process. I was torn between thinking that he was giving everyone a full chance & suspecting that he didn't know how to manage those who failed him. Or maybe it was all about his insecurity, since others seemed to have more experience in politics & their realms than he did. I'm still not sure, but i ended up giving him positive credit for it. :-)

deborah

I just finished chapter 2.

I thought it interesting that the Capital was in Washington, in part, because they wanted to separate the political from the financial capitals.

I never thought of that before.

I'm confused. The thread is titled Team of Rivals but you're posting about Founding Brothers, right?

Sorry my error.

OK. I didn't mean to be snarky but the content didn't sound familiar!

I didn't take it that way at all, Cathy. I was annoyed at myself for making the error.

I am 70 pages away from completing this book. Hip, hip, hooray!! If I do nothing else this year I will have accomplished reading this book that has been sitting on my shelf for about three years.

I have even more respect for Lincoln than I did before. I never understood what a terrific politician he was and how he was able to balance all these personalities within his cabinet. And how good his timing was in coming forth with his pronouncements. This is such an important quality. Timing is everything.

Barbara

Barbara: I am 70 pages away from completing this book

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Barbara, I thought the last part of the book was very good. You will really enjoy the last 70 pages.

DH has about 100 pages to go yet. Yesterday we were discussing the book & he said he wasn't sure some of Lincoln's timings were as good as Goodwin portrayed them. Sometimes, particularly with issues of the War, DH felt Lincoln sat on the fence too long. Yes, it appeared things worked out alright but it wasn't clear to DH that this was an intentional "let's see what develops" waiting or inaction by Lincoln. Goodwin doesn't really state either way, it seems. Do you think we are missing the author's nuances or is she not making a determination?

I followed this & Founding Brothers with Dinner at Mr. Jefferson's, where the author was so opinionated that he seemed to be tweaking some material to fit his conclusion. Quite different from Goodwin's apparent non-comments.

deborah

I agree that it isn't clear that Lincoln was involved in an intentional "let's see what develops" or not.
But as there is no clear evidence, I guess, it seems that Goodwin is not supplying her own opinions. I liked that.

Barbara

I like that, too! It serves history better, imo.

deborah

It's the birthday of Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, born in Brooklyn, New York (1943). She's the author of the highly acclaimed biographies Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976), The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga (1987), and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005).

When she was 20 years old, she landed an internship at the State Department in Washington, and a couple of years later she interned with Congress. At 24, she was working at the White House for the Labor Secretary under Lyndon Johnson's administration. On the side, she was writing, and one of the articles she co-wrote was called "How to Remove LBJ in 1968." It was a scathing attack of President Johnson's Vietnam War policy, and it was published in The New Republic.

And then she met the president at a fancy ball at the White House. He knew that she had written and published harsh things about him. But he asked her to dance anyway. At the end of the evening, he asked her to work for him, as a personal assistant.

She taught government at Harvard and helped Johnson write his memoirs. Three years after he died, she published Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976). Reviewers raved, and the book was a huge commercial success — a New York Times best-seller. Soon afterward, Simon & Schuster asked her to write a biography of John F. Kennedy. In the meantime, she'd married a former Kennedy speechwriter, Richard Goodwin, and had access to all sorts of new material, including the personal letters of JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy.

After writing about the Kennedys, she wrote about the Roosevelts, focusing on the marriage of the president and first lady in No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt — The Home Front in World War II (1994). For that book she won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize. She thought she would write a similarly focused book on Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary. But when she started doing research for the book, she found that "during the [Civil] war, Lincoln was married more to the colleagues in his cabinet —in terms of time he spent with them and the emotion shared — than he was to Mary." She decided to write a book about Lincoln and some of the men he had appointed to his Cabinet. Specifically, she was interested in men he appointed who before the election had been his political opponents and had campaigned against him. She focused on William Seward, who became Lincoln's secretary of state; Edward Bates, who became Lincoln's attorney general; and Salmon P. Chase, who became the secretary of the Treasury.

Her book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, was published in 2005. The 944-page book was widely talked about around Washington, and during the next presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama mentioned Goodwin's book in interviews, saying that it's essential reading for the Oval Office. After he won the Democratic nomination, he named former opponent Joe Biden as his running mate, and after he was elected, he appointed a handful of former rivals to his Cabinet — including Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and Tom Vilsack as secretary of agriculture. The Chicago Tribune reported that "in Obama circles," the principle of appointing former adversaries to Cabinet positions "goes by the shorthand 'Team of Rivals,' from the title of Goodwin's book."

Team of Rivals begins:
On May 18, 1860, the day when the Republican Party would nominate its candidate for president, Abraham Lincoln was up early. As he climbed the stairs to his plainly furnished law office on the west side of the public square in Springfield, Illinois, breakfast was being served at the 130-room Chenery House on Fourth Street. Fresh butter, flour, lard, and eggs were being put out for sale at the City Grocery Store on North Sixth Street. And in the morning newspaper, the proprietors at Smith, Wickersham & Company had announced the arrival of a large spring stock of silks, calicos, ginghams, and linens, along with a new supply of the latest styles of hosiery and gloves.
... Lincoln's shock of black hair, brown furrowed face, and deep-set eyes made him look older than his fifty-one years. He was a familiar figure to almost everyone in Springfield, as was his singular way of walking, which gave the impression that his long, gaunt frame needed oiling. He plodded forward in an awkward manner, hands hanging at his sides or folded behind his back. His step had no spring, his partner William Herndon recalled. He lifted his whole foot at once rather than lifting from the toes and then thrust the whole foot down on the ground rather than landing on his heel. "His legs," another observer noted, "seemed to drag from the knees down, like those of a laborer going home after a hard day's work."
His features, even supporters conceded, were not such "as belong to a handsome man." In repose, his face was "so overspread with sadness," the reporter Horace White noted, that it seemed as if "Shakespeare's melancholy Jacques had been translated from the forest of Arden to the capital of Illinois."
Doris Goodwin said, "To be a historian is to discover the facts in context, to discover what things mean, to lay before the reader your reconstruction of time, place, mood, to empathize even when you disagree. You read all the relevant material, you synthesize all the books, you speak to all the people you can, and then you write down what you known about the period. You feel you own it."

And she said, "Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history."

The Writer's Almanac is produced by Prairie Home Productions and presented by American Public Media.

I loved the book. The amount of detail is amazing, and the characters, especially Stanton, Chase, and Lincoln himself, are fascinating and very well illuminated. I also loved the Blairs as a group. Did you know that Montgomery Clift's mother was under the delusion that she was an illegitimate relative of the Blairs, from whom she tried to gain recognition repeatedly?? And having just read the Andrew Jackson bio, it was fascinating to see what became of them.

Michele

Michele: Did you know that Montgomery Clift's mother was under the delusion that she was an illegitimate relative of the Blairs,
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No, I didn't know that. That's wild.

Alias Reader wrote: "It's the birthday of Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, born in Brooklyn, New York (1943). She's the author of the highly acclaimed biographies Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976..."

I loved the two DKG books I've read so it was a bit of a disappointment to me to learn about the ole controversy surrounding her book on the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. http://www.forbes.com/2002/02/27/0227...
I did put it out of my mind when I started reading "Team of Rivals". Ms. Goodwin writes a riveting book. ;)

Welcome to BNC, Jo_Elle1
:)

I saw that Kennedy book for $1 at a used bookstore. I could kick myself for not getting it. It's such a big book I put it back on the shelf.

I didn't know about any controversy regarding the book. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

You may be BNC's first member from Brazil ! It must be fabulous to live there. :)

I vaguely recall that controversy. I think it didn't last as long as Ambrose's because DKG tried to make amends, whereas SA didn't seem to worry about it.

Thanks for the reminded, Jo_Elle1. And welcome to BNC!

deborah

Thank you Alias Reader. :). I love living in Brazil but there are times when I miss a good stroll through the library or browsing the shelves at a nice bookstore. There are nice bookstores here but my Portuguese is limited to the Children's section. ;).

Thank you Deborah! I'm looking forward to the discussions!