Continued from March 6 (reply #23). A letter from Francis Blair, Sr. to William Seward quoted in the last paragraph of the following was written on this date.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed. To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
* Financial panic!
The details of the sinking of the steamer Central America are related.
“The Kansas Constitutional Convention met and organized, then adjourned until the 19th of October. The election for delegate to Congress, members of the Legislature, and various county officers, was held October 5. The result has not yet reached us. In view of this election Governor Walker issued a proclamation giving his views in reference to the qualifications required for voting, and other matters of interest. . . .”
“General Gideon J. Pillow of Tennessee has published a long letter purporting to give a portion of the secret history of the late Mexican war. . . .”
“An overland emigrant train, consisting of ten persons, had been attacked by Indians, and all its members killed, with the exception of one woman, who escaped after having been left for dead. Other Indian murders are reported. – The inhabitants of Carson Valley are about to petition Congress for a separate Territorial organization. They wish to be separated from Utah because they dislike the Mormon supremacy, and also because they are during the winter months unable to hold any communication with Salt Lake City, even if they desired it. The present population of the Territory within the proposed boundaries is about 7000, and is rapidly increasing.”
“EUROPE: Public interest in Great Britain is almost wholly concentrated upon the affairs of India.” News of the Indian mutiny is presented in detail.
“THE EAST: The United States sloop of war Portsmouth, visited Siam for the purpose of exchanging ratifications of the treaty lately concluded between that country and the United States. . . . Just before the Portsmouth sailed, the Second King came down the river from Bangkok to the anchorage, thirty-five miles distant, in order to visit the ship; and was so much gratified with his visit that he repeated it the next day, remaining on board nearly the whole of each day. He was accompanied by his son, Prince George Washington, and by a suite of officers and nobles. This is the first time that a King of Siam has ever visited a man-of-war, and it is received as an act expressive of friendship toward the United States.”
It is said that the king greatly resembles Rex Harrison.
Continued from March 6 (reply #23). A letter from Francis Blair, Sr. to William Seward quoted in the last paragraph of the following was written on this date.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals
Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher
November 2, MONDAY. The baby walked all alone today. Poor George Cornell’s death is announced at last. He was a useful man, and his prominent fault, cynicism of speech, merely assumed. . . .
State election comes off tomorrow. Nobody cares. Twelve months and a crisis have toned down people’s interest in politics wonderfully. John C. Fremont is a very insignificant person, and Kansas a very remote insignificant territory. The Democrats are likely to carry the state by default.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453346/ron-chernows-ulysses-grant-biography-virtue-and-power
This a review of a new biography of Ulysses Grant, who might do something noteworthy someday (?). Honestly, he hasn’t amounted to much since the Mexican War. The author seems to fancy himself as the nonfiction Tolstoy - no doubt the audiobook is a zillion discs - but I thought his nearly-as-massive biography of Alexander Hamilton was quite a page-turner.
I still like Aaron Burr best, though.
Continued from October 5 (reply #10) .
Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era
Continued from October 21 (Reply #45)
Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee, an abridgement by Richard Harwell
Continued from October 6 (reply #14). The “strong rejoinder” from Ellen Sherman to WTS referenced by footnote #21 was contained in a letter written on this date.
James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country, A Life