Lincoln’s political and military shellacking: study history, First Lady

Today (Dec. 13) in 1862, not quite half way through the Civil War, the Union suffered a major defeat to the Confederates in Fredericksburg, VA.

Lincoln had a tortured life as the President.  Seven states had already seceded before he even took the oath. When he left for Washington, D.C., he told a group of journalists at Springfield (Illinois), “Well boys, your trouble was over now; mine has just begun.”  And he went to Ford Theater on that fateful night only five days after Robert Lee surrendered to Grant.

But, this was the darkest moment for Lincoln who, after the Fredericksburg collapse, said, “If there is a worse place than Hell, then I am in it.”  After the success (not a decisive victory though) at the Battle of Antietam, General McClellan’s “Slows” (按兵不動) became an agonizing problem for Lincoln.

McClellan’s reluctance and failure to pursue the retreating Lee’s Army prompted Lincoln’s visit to McClellan’s Army without even notifying him (see the two photos) and after that visit McClellan still gave all kinds of excuses including the ‘tired horses’ (We read Lincoln’s impromptu response, “Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?”) and the impatient Lincoln became sarcastic, “My dear McClellan, if you don’t want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time.” Enough was enough, Lincoln fired McClellan, replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside, (who was said to possess “ten times as much heart as he has head.”) who didn’t last long after losing 13,000 casualties, more than twice the Confederate losses, when he met Robert Lee at Fredericksburg.

A month before this disaster, Lincoln suffered an 1862 mid-term election loss; the Democratic Congressmen increased from 44 to 75 (This is Lincoln’s shellacking).  In an interview Barbara Walters asked the First Lady, Michelle Obama (a supposed counselor for the President) about the ignominious defeat of the mid-term election, she said, “My understanding is that, number one, every president in history has lost Congress at the midterms, maybe that's overstating it, but it's happened for every president in my lifetime ... It's the norm.”

The First Lady should study history, especially the man her husband has been trying to emulate, and compared Obama’s shellacking (refer to my post of “On language: Obama’s shellacking”) to that of Lincoln’s, not just that of Clinton or Bush—not just in her life time.