Encounters
''prairie'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜_encounter｜ENC｜20260904120411-29-•
Just as success seemed within reach, the water level began to drop, forcing the Talisman, on which Lincoln served as assistant pilot, to turn back. The boat retreated slowly in the face of stiff prairie winds, making only 3 or 4 miles a day. A sense of déjà vu may have overcome Lincoln when the vessel stuck on the same New Salem mill-dam that had snagged his flatboat a year earlier. By this time, the boat was in sad shape, with the cabin and upper portions severely damaged by trees overhanging the sluggish river. The crew tore away part of the dam and retreated ignominiously to Beardstown, their mission a failure. After pocketing his $40 fee, Lincoln trudged back to New Salem, where his warehousing business met the same melancholy fate as Offutt’s store.
Source: Abraham Lincoln∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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''ignominious'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜_encounter｜ENC｜20260904161329-20-•
In the wake of the ignominious defeat at Bull Run, a prominent journalist spoke for many when he confided to a colleague, “I am feeling bad—very bad. The Manassas disaster broke me down in a measure, but I could get over this—could understand it, and extract something good from it, were it not that I am wanting in Confidence in the Administration,” which “either does not comprehend the magnitude of this rebellion; or they don’t know, or don’t want to learn, how to put it down.” It could not “be suppressed by kindness; that’s clear—and yet Mr Lincoln seems to think it can.” The Republican Party, he lamented, “has gone up—and I only hope that our country, through the imbecility or cowardice, or treachery of her rulers, may not follow. We want a firm and able Administration, with a great and determined National policy, vigorously executed.” He feared that another Bull Run “blunder and all would be lost. The people now more than half disgusted would then be wholly demoralized.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln∶ A Life ▫𓂃
(echo:: @ ⌗)
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