Encounters
''pusillanimity'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜encounter｜ENC｜20260904161329-18-•
But Greeley’s New York Tribune did not hesitate to attribute the “shipwreck of our grand and heroic army” to the administration, which owed an apology “to the humiliated and astounded country.” Greeley, who acknowledged that he “was all but insane” after the battle, privately urged Lincoln to surrender to the Confederacy. “You are not considered a great man, and I am a hopelessly broken one,” the mercurial editor observed patronizingly in a letter to the president. If the Confederacy “cannot be beaten—if our recent disaster’s fatal—do not fear to sacrifice yourself to your country. If the Rebels are not to be beaten—if that is your judgment in view of all the light you can get—then every drop of blood henceforth shed in this quarrel will be wantonly, wickedly shed, and the guilt will rest heavily on the soul of every promoter of the crime.” (John Hay aptly called this missive a “most insane specimen of pusillanimity.”)
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original