Re-reading Team of Rivals about Lincoln, and there are three take-aways:
- People are terrible. Politicians, preachers, women, enraged that anyone would dare even question slavery. Openly beat a Senator and be celebrated all across the South. Obviously willing to kill and die to keep other humans as property.
- George McClellan was truly, breathtakingly terrible. So many people died because of him. (Read Team - I'm underselling how awful he was.)
- Death death death. Not in the war, just as the everyday norm. Wives, husbands, siblings, young parents, kids. The war was horrific, but so was everyday life.
Repeat from five years ago:
Anne and I are so grateful for modern medicine. Doctors saved my life when I was a toddler. They saved it again in 2014 and then in 2017. They do a lot more for me that I won't bother listing here.
A few years ago, I read a biography of George Washington. Martha Washington was born into a wealthy family and married a wealthy man as her first husband. She buried him and married another rich and powerful man (George). Yet with every possible advantage of the age, she buried every single one of her children, and every single one of her grandkids, too.
How effing horrible is that?
I know many people in every generation think they live in the worst possible time. But it really is hard to imagine what it would be like to have your spouse(s), kids, and grandkids likely to drop dead.
As mentioned in Losing, it wasn't long ago that merely being pregnant was as lethal as a breast cancer diagnosis is today. Tell me again how today is the worst? (For humans living in the developed world, of course. It is the worst for the median sentient creature.)
A few years ago, I read a biography of George Washington. Martha Washington was born into a wealthy family and married a wealthy man as her first husband. She buried him and married another rich and powerful man (George). Yet with every possible advantage of the age, she buried every single one of her children, and every single one of her grandkids, too.
How effing horrible is that?
I know many people in every generation think they live in the worst possible time. But it really is hard to imagine what it would be like to have your spouse(s), kids, and grandkids likely to drop dead.
As mentioned in Losing, it wasn't long ago that merely being pregnant was as lethal as a breast cancer diagnosis is today. Tell me again how today is the worst? (For humans living in the developed world, of course. It is the worst for the median sentient creature.)
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