Encounters
''obstinate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜_encounter｜ENC｜20260904152658-39-•
And so Lincoln felt compelled to break his engagement, but just how he did so is unclear. Alluding to Matilda Edwards, Joshua Speed recalled that “Lincoln—seeing another girl—& finding he did not love [the woman who eventually became] his wife wrote a letter saying he did not love her.” When Speed was shown that document, he “tried to persuade Lincoln to burn it up,” whereupon Lincoln said: “Speed I always Knew you were an obstinate man. If you won’t deliver it I will get Some one to do it.” Speed replied: “I Shall not deliver it nor give it to you to be delivered: Words are forgotten—Misunderstood—passed by—not noticed in a private Conversation—but once put your words in writing and they Stand as a living & eternal Monument against you. If you think you have will & Manhood Enough to go and see her and Speak to her what you say in that letter, you may do that.” Acting on Speed’s advice, Lincoln visited Mary Todd and, again according to Speed, “told her that he did not love her—She rose—and Said ‘The deciever shall be decieved wo is me.’; alluding to a young man She fooled.” Speed reported that “Lincoln drew her down on his Knee—Kissed her—& parted—He going one way & She another—Lincoln did Love Miss [Matilda] Edwards—‘Mary’ Saw it—told Lincoln the reason of his Change of mind—heart & soul—released him.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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''obstinate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜_encounter｜ENC｜20260904161329-29-•
Another Massachusetts antislavery champion, Lydia Maria Child, condemned Lincoln for being “narrow-minded, short-sighted, and obstinate,” and exclaimed: “O Lord! O Lord! How we do need a Cromwell!” She urged all opponents of slavery to sustain Frémont: “We ought never to forget that he was the first man to utter the word, which millions long to hear.” George Bancroft told his wife: “We suffer from the want of an organizing mind at the head of the government. We have a president without brains.” From Chicago, Joseph Medill wrote that Lincoln’s “frightfully retrograde” order to Frémont “comes upon us like a killing June frost—which destroys the comming harvest” and “has cast a funeral gloom” not only over the Windy City but also over “the state and the intire west.” Nothing that Buchanan ever did “received so universal censure.” Alluding to the ninety-first Psalm, Medill lamented that the “loss [of] a battle can be repaired: but this letter acts as a pestilence that walketh at noon day.” Medill’s newspaper alleged that “[n]o Sunday in our recollection has been so broken by general indignation and rage.” In Wisconsin, people were so angry that one resident told his congressman that it “is utterly impossible for you to conceive what a whirlwind of grief & indignation” Lincoln’s letter “has aroused throughout the North West.” There the president “today could not carry the vote of [a] single town.” Not even Buchanan was so roundly execrated as Lincoln now was. In Minnesota, the feminist-abolitionist Jane Grey Swisshelm condemned the president’s “imbecility, or treachery.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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''ordnance'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜_encounter｜ENC｜20260904172645-09-•
Lincoln’s attempt to expedite the creation of a mortar fleet was emblematic of his desire to provide the military with the latest, most lethal weapons. In keeping with his long-standing interest in things mechanical, he studied weaponry as well as strategy, and during the first two years of his administration became in effect a one-man research-and-development branch of the War Department in addition to its main strategist. But the chief of army ordnance, General James W. Ripley (known as “Ripley Van Winkle”), proved obstinate and recalcitrant. Trying to get the unimaginative, cantankerous Ripley to adopt technological innovations was as difficult as it was to get McClellan or Buell to attack the enemy.
Source: Abraham Lincoln∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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