Ramblings & ephemera

The conspirer

From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (138):
[John Slidell] was aptly named, being noted for his slyness. At the outbreak of hostilities, back in the spring, an English journalist called him, “a man of iron will and strong passions, who loves the excitement of combinations and who, in his dungeon, or whatever [...]

Good will to everyone … with a few exceptions

From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (132-133):
Two days after the first-Wednesday election an insurrection exploded in the loyalist mountain region of East Tennessee. Bridges were burned and armed men assembled to assist the expected advanced of a Union army through Cumberland Gap. … Resistance was quashed and a considereable number of [...]

Jefferson Davis, seeker after discord

From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (127):
Men interpreted [Jefferson Davis] as they saw him, and for the most part they considered him argumentative in the extreme, irascible, and a seeker after discord. A Richmond editor later wrote, for all to read, that Davis was “ready for any quarrel with any and [...]

Jefferson Davis replies to Joseph Johnston

From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (126):
[Jefferson] Davis read [the letter from Joseph E. Johnston] with a wrath that quickly rose to match the sender’s. … In composing his reply, however, Davis employed not a foil but a cutlass. Rejecting the nimble parry and riposte of thetoirc and logic, at both [...]

Too much tail to that kite

From Addison Hart’s “General Fremont Has Chicken Guts!: Why John Charles Fremont Got Kicked Out Of Missouri“:
… [John Charles] Fremont did little else in his first few months in command in Missouri … He did, however, manage to get some criticisms over his choices for staff positions. Unlike many generals, Fremont wanted to be allowed [...]

Lincoln’s 1st political speech

From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (23):
[Lincoln's] first speech was made at a country auction. Twenty-three years old, he stood on a box, wearing a frayed straw hat, a calico shirt, and pantaloons held up by a single-strap suspender. As he was about to speak, a fight broke out in the [...]