An Update

This isn't meant to be like the other posts that tell you what happened in Team of Rivals. This chapter is just meant to tell you how far I am into it.

THE NUMBER OF PAGES IN TEAM OF RIVALS: 754 (not including the bibliography and all that stuff)

HOW MANY PAGES IN I AM: 534

PAGES LEFT: 220

So if I read eight pages a day, I'll be done with Team of Rivals by the end of the summer and I can brag to all of my friends that I am way more smarter than them. The only trick with that is that I don't have any friends. Or good grammar.

Summary of Chapter Sixteen of TEAM OF RIVALS

GENERAL WAR ORDER NO. 1: Sets February 22 as "the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces."

On January 27, 1862, Lincoln issued the General War Order Number One. As you can see above, it marked February 22 as the day that the U.S. would attack anybody that was attacking them. Well, Lincoln was planning to attack people on February 22, but he was too "preoccupied" by Willie dying and Tad's illness to do anything about it.

People were all like, "What up with dat?"

Well, maybe not exactly like that.

I don't think people in the 1800's said what up with dat.

I might be wrong, though.

Just maybe.

Later, on March 11, Lincoln fired McClellan.

Well, it was more of a demotion.

If you have no idea what a demotion is, I guess I'll tell you. I need to beef this post up, anyways. If you already know what it means, too bad so sad. I guess that you can just suffer through me describing what a demotion is.

So.

The definition of demotion.

A demotion is pretty much the opposite of a promotion.

And if you don't know what a promotion is, go look it up. I'm tired of explaining all of this difficult stuff.

So, anyways,  on March 11, Lincoln fired demoted McClellan, so instead of being the general of the army, McClellan was just given control of the Potomac Army.

So that's it.

That's all there is to it.

I hope you learned something.

I know I did.

The end.

Summary of Chapter Fifteen of TEAM OF RIVALS

In February of 1862, Mary sent out invitations to around 500 people inviting them to come to the White House for a party.

Using invitations to get to the White House was a new way of doing, you know, stuff. Presidents (first ladies included) usually invited people into the White House by either inviting a small number or just by opening their doors and seeing who came in.

So, Mary's party was going to be big. and I mean BIG. Mary thought the party was going to go perfectly with nothing bad happening.

She was wrong.

Just a few days before Mary's BIG party, Willie (one of her sons) got sick. Mary wanted to cancel the party to take care of Willie, but Abraham was hesitant. They'd already sent out the invitations to people, and it probably wouldn't be a good choice to cancel the party. They just decided not to cancel the ball.

Willie's condition was worsening since the ball, and Tad (another Lincoln child) also got ill. On Thursday, February 20 at 5 pm, Willie died.

After Willie died, Mary almost never stopped crying because she was so depressed. She sometimes invited those people who pretend to speak with dead people (spiritualists?) to the White House to 'bring back' Willie.

Yeah, it was pretty bad.

By the way, it turns out that the ball was a huge triumph. Just saying.

Summary of Chapter Fourteen of TEAM OF RIVALS

There was a guy  that was a general.

Should the G be capitalized in 'general'?

Okay, never mind.

So, the general guy. His name was McCellan.

Well, his last name was, at least.

I don't remember his first name.

If I remembered, I'd tell you.

But I don't.

So I won't.

But now I'm just wasting time because I don't feel like writing.

And I don't think you're enjoying my stalling too much.

I payed too much for this, you say.

You didn't pay anything for this, I say.

Okay, enough with the stalling, you say.

Fine, I say.

I'm  getting annoyed with the way that we're talking, you say.

I agree, I say.

Then start actually writing, you say.

Fine, I say.

Fine, you say.

Fine, I say.

START WRITING ALREADY!, you say.

Fine, I say.

If I have to, I say.

So, this McClellan guy.

He was a general.

But you probably knew that.

So, the Republicans liked McClellan at first. But that changed once he made an order to capture escaped slaves that have, well... escaped. Once McClellan made that order, people started to dislike him.

Well, I guess that's it.

No more strenuous writing for today.

All that stalling took a lot out of me.

What?!?, you say.

That was it?, you say.

Yes, I say.

I waited all this time for just one paragraph?, you say.

Yes, I say.

This cost too much, you say.

Summary of Chapter Thirteen of TEAM OF RIVALS

When the Confederates attacked Fort Sumner, the Civil War began. The Civil War lasted for four years, and would take 600,000 lives.

In comparison to today's population, the deaths would total over 5,000,000,000.

That's more deaths that all the wars from the Revolutionary war to the Iraq War combined.

Lincoln called a cabinet meeting to discuss if there should  be any more troops brought in to the war. Some said 100,000, and some said only 50,000. To make everybody happy (more or less), Lincoln chose to only send in 7,500 troops.

The president had $20,000 to maintain the White House.

I think that Mary wasted used a whole lot of that.

Once she was done spending the money on carriages and other things, they were $6,800 in debt.

That's a lot.

You know what she did?

She asked the groundskeeper of the White House to funnel money toward her so she could pay off the debt.

Sounds easy... if I had a groundskeeper and a funnel.

Summary of Chapter Twelve of TEAM OF RIVALS

People thought that the way Lincoln wrote speeches was very unusual. I don't know the way that other speech writing people write speeches, so I don't really know if his way of writing speeches is weird or not. I'm just stating what they said in Team of Rivals.

First, Lincoln would reduce complex ideas into paragraphs, then after days or weeks, he would go back to that paragraph to edit it. Another thing that other speech writers found weird about Lincoln's speeches had four sources, when other people's speeches usually had more. (Those four main sources, in case you were wondering, were the Constitution, Andrew Jackson's nullification proclamation, Daniel Webster's "Liberty and Union Forever" speech that was popular at the time, and Clay's address to the senate in 1850.)

Several people read Lincoln's inaugural speech draft before the inauguration. Of all the people who read Lincoln's speech, Seward had the most impact. Seward's changes softened the tone so the tone would be... well... softer. Other than making the speech more softy, Seward's changes also added a lot of other things that made the speech more better.

As you can see, I wouldn't be too good at speeches.

Summary of Chapter Eleven of TEAM OF RIVALS

When Lincoln was leaving Springfield for Washington by train, over 1,000 people met him at the train station to say goodbye and to wish him good luck when he was the president and just to cry about it.

A man named Allan Pinkerton was responsible for guarding Lincoln on the trip to Washington. And because of all of the rumors going around about an assassin that was going to try to assassinate him when he got to Washington, Pinkerton decided that the best way to handle that was to take an earlier train from Springfield to the Capitol to stump the would be assassins from assassinating Lincoln.

Pinkerton's plan did work out. And I don't mean lifting weights.

Summary of Chapter Ten of TEAM OF RIVALS

Now that he had become president, Abraham Lincoln had to decide who his cabinet would consist of.

And by cabinet, I don't mean what clothes he would be wearing during his presidency. I mean who would be the secretary of state and other things like that.

When choosing members of his cabinet, Lincoln had three main people that he would choose to be on it. Those three people were Chase, Seward and Bates.

Well, you might be thinking something along the lines of, "Why in the world would he choose them?!" Well, when Lincoln was asked that same question, he replied better than I could explain it.

"We needed the strongest men of the party in the cabinet. We needed to hold our own people together. I had looked the party over and concluded that these people were the very strongest men. Then I had no right to deprive the country of their services."

It must be a weird party where the strongest people there are politicians.


NOTE: Chase, Seward and Bates all accepted.

Summary of Chapter Nine of TEAM OF RIVALS

Yes, I know. If you just simply glance down the page, you will see that there is a lot less writing than there normally is. I'm aware of that. I guess you'll just have to deal with that.

Abraham Lincoln, who was sometimes mistakenly called 'Abram', shocked the country, but especially the Eastern Republicans when he was elected. At first, nobody expected Lincoln to be that good and they thought he was just an accidental candidate. But when he started doing what he did, people were all like, "Wow. This guy is good. We should vote for him."

Lincoln had a secretary named John Nicolay. He was 28 years old and he was an immigrant from Germany. Nicolay was said to help Lincoln answer letters and help with visitors. I honestly don't know why I added that. I just felt that this really short summary needed some beefing up.

Seward was planning to go on a tour, which started in Michigan, went west to Wisconsin and Minnesota, south to Iowa and Kansas, then finally east to Illinois and Ohio. In Detroit, 50,000 people gathered to hear him speak, and in Kalamazoo, there were thousands that gathered to hear him speak. When the tour finally ended on October sixth, a noisy throng welcomed him back to Auburn.

Well, I guess that's it. That's the end of the really short summary. I'm sorry if it was painfully short. I didn't want to cause any pain... or so you think.

Summary of Chapter Eight of TEAM OF RIVALS

In May 1860, 40,000 visitors flocked to Chicago, most of them for the same reason. To see the new president being elected.

On Wednesday, May 16,  people started swarming around the new Convention Hall. At noon, the New Yorkian (somebody from New York) made the opening address, which announced the starting of the presidential election thing.

The first two days "credential battles were settled, and an inclusive platform, keyed to Northern interests, was enthusiastically adopted."

When voting began, Seward and Lincoln were in the lead by a lot. Out of the total of 233 votes, Seward had 173.5 votes, Lincoln had 102, Chase had 49 and in last place, Bates with 48 at the end of the first ballot.

At the end of the second ballot, Lincoln got 17 more votes, Delaware switched six votes from Bates to Lincoln, and Pennsylvania gave 44 votes to Lincoln as well. Lincoln's total was 181, now only 3.5 votes behind Seward.

During the third ballot, Lincoln got 4 more votes from Massachusetts, 4 from Pennsylvania, and 15 from Ohio. His total was 231.5- only 1.5 votes shy of winning.

In roughly ten seconds, David D Carter stood up and announced that he would  switch four votes from Bates to Lincoln, which caused Lincoln to win by 2.5 points. All of the Lincoln supporters stood, threw their hats in the air and cheered, whereas Seward supporters cried.

People said that in the end it was political smarts, not luck that caused Lincoln to win and become president.

Summary of Chapter Seven of TEAM OF RIVALS

In the last few months before the nomination, small mistakes could often be deadly. That's why Lincoln, as smart as he is, didn't reveal a thing of what he was doing before he did it. Seward, being not as smart as Lincoln, took an eight month trip to Europe, which caused Chase to secure more votes for himself, rather than Seward.

When Seward finally returned after his eight month trip to Europe, He delivered a big speech in Washington. Once his speech was over, Seward got loads of applause and praise in newspapers. When it was printed in pamphlet form, around half a million copies of it were sold. And though people didn't enjoy the speech as much as others, Seward just claimed that to be because he was trying "not to rally the faithful, but disarm the opposition."

As Seward and Bates were repositioning themselves toward the middle of the Republican Party, Lincoln stayed steady. And even though at first Lincoln wasn't expecting to become a candidate, after a while it seemed a bit more probable.

At Cooper Union, nearly 1,500 people had gathered to hear Abraham Lincoln speak. At first everybody thought'

"This guy looks messy. His clothes are dirty, so why would we trust him to make a good speech?"

But, even though Lincoln's suit was wrinkled from traveling, his coat too big, one pant leg too long, his legs too long for his pants and his hair messy, everybody was captivated by his speech. His speech was so popular that it was reported about in newspapers and he was wanted in New England. (For his speeches, not for a crime he committed... I hope.)

Summary of Chapter Six of TEAM OF RIVALS

On January 20, 1855, the worst blizzard in over two decades struck Springfield, which "isolated it from the rest of the state." Snowdrifts stopped trains and mail for a week. Once the snow storm passed, legislature continued.

Sounds like a normal winter day in Michigan.

In the summer of 1855, about six months after the big snow storm that stopped the legislature, there was an important case. A guy named George Harding wanted to patent a reaping machine (whatever that is) but the John Manny Company claimed they claimed the patent before Harding did. Two people who were good with patents (their names were Edward Dickerson and Reverdy Johnson) sided with McCormick and Harding sided with Manny. The outcome would be decided a lot later.

Edward Stanton married Mary Lamson and had 2 kids who were named Lucy and Edward Jr. Stanton's daughter Lucy died after an attack of scarlet fever and three years later in 1844, Mary died from Bilious fever at age 29. Stanton's brother Darwin (a doctor) got "a high fever that impaired his brain", then he later took a sharp, pointy object that only doctors could use and stabbed himself with it and bled to death "in a few moments". Stanton was brought in to see that, and after that he got really sad and depressed.

At the Republican Convention, Lincoln received 110 votes for vice president, only beaten by William Dayton.

In Baltimore, Whigs gathered to support Millard Fillmore for the president.

The general election was a three way tie between a guy named Fremont (the E was supposed to have a thing over it, but I don't know how to do that), James Buchanan, and Millard Fillmore. After all the votes were counted, James Buchanan became the president.

While Seward and Chase were trying to become president, Lincoln ran again for U.S. Senate. The seven debates against Lincoln's rival, Douglas lasted for three hours each. The three hours were split up like this: the first contestant spoke for an hour, the next contestant spoke for an hour and a half, and to conclude, the first contestant would speak again for a half hour. That's a long time.

Summary of Chapter Five of TEAM OF RIVALS

In the America of 1850, there were 23 million people living there, and it was largely rural. Three quarters of the American citizen who were aloud to vote participated in the two elections that happened in that century. Issues of politics were told to people by newspaper, because nobody had iPhones back then.

WHAT? NOBODY HAD PHONES? HOW DID THEY SURVIVE?

By reading newspapers, of course.

On their phones?

No. They used real newspapers. Made from real paper. Crazy, huh?

I'M FREAKING OUT SO MUCH I'M FREAKING IN!! AAAAAAAH!!

Anyways, what I was saying before-

AAAAH!! PAPER! WHAT'S THAT? IT'S PROBABLY SOME STRANGE, INHUMAN SUBSTANCE, AM I RIGHT? WHAT EVER IT IS, WE NEED TO DECONTAMINATE THE EARTH OF THIS HORRID SUBSTANCE BY SENDING IT TO THE MOON! AAAH! CALL THE PRESIDENT! CALL THE GOVERNMENT! CALL THE FBI! CALL WHOEVER IS IN CHARGE OF SPACE STUFF SO THEY CAN SEND IT TO THE MOON, NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW! Oh, wait. I have my phone here. I can just Google it. I'll get back to you.

-that person so rudely interrupting, there was a guy named Henry Clay. He was a big man in Congress. But not a big man as in fat, but a big man as in popular. He once saved the Union, which could be why he was a big man. (Again, not big fat, but big popular). Clay once made two resolutions. The first was that they would admit the state of California immediately, leaving the decision regarding slaver's status within California's new state legislature's borders. This decision favored favored the North. The second decision that favored the South was to divide the remainder of Mexican accession into 2 territories (New Mexico and Utah) with no restrictions on slavery. Oh, no. Here comes the-

BY JOVE, I THINK I'VE GOT IT! I THINK I FOUND WHO THE BEST SPACE LAUNCHING PEOPLE ARE! YAY! I turns out that the best paper launching people are NASA! I thought they made satellites. Even though they launch monkeys into space, they could launch paper, too, right? MONKEYS IN SPACE!! Wow! You learn something new every day! I wonder how much it would cost to launch all of that darned paper into space, maybe a few pennies? A few dollars? How much would a MONKEY IN SPACE cost? A lot? I hope not! I WANT ONE SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!!

That could get annoying.

At the Circuit, many of the lawyers slept two or three to a bed because there was such little room for them to go otherwise. When the court closed on Saturday afternoons, most lawyers traveled home to visit their family, to return again to the circuit on Sunday night or Monday morning, however, Lincoln didn't.

Frances Seward, the daughter of William Seward, had many nervous disorders such as nausea, temporary blindness, insomnia, migraines, mysterious joint or muscle pains, crying spells, and sustained bouts of depression. No matter how many doctors tried, they couldn't pinpoint exactly where all of those things came from.

If Kate Chase's grades were not acceptable to her father, she would have to go back to her school, Miss Haines' School, over the summer. At Miss Haines' School, there was a strict schedule. They rose at 6 am and studied for an hour and a half. After that, they would take a walk outside (no skipping) until breakfast. After breakfast, there were classes like literature, french, Latin, English grammar, science, elocution (not electrocution), piano and dancing.

Well, I guess that's it. I made it all the way through with only minor interruptions. I hope I can make it through this last sentence without a single interrup-

HI! IT'S ME AGAIN! YIPPEE! WHY IS THIS GUY WRITING SO LONG? I CAN'T EVEN DO A LONG TASK LIKE THAT!

-tion.

Summary of Chapter Four of TEAM OF RIVALS

In December of 1847, the Lincoln family moved to Washington for the opening of the congressional session. Since the Lincolns couldn't find any place to stay in Washington, they decided to stay at Mrs. Sprigg's boarding house, which is now where the current Library of Congress is. Lincoln, with nothing else to do, took up bowling with some other people at Mrs. Sprigg's boarding house, even though he was incredibly clumsy. Others who bowled with him said that if Lincoln won or lost, he would still be happy about it (and not because he was listening to 'Happy').

Chase, Lincoln and Seward all wanted to ban slavery from entering the newly claimed land from Mexico, however, Bates believed something a little different. He supported the Wilmot Provisco, which meant that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in said territories aquired from Mexico," but for practical reasons rather than moral. Bates believed that "if southerners brought their slaves into the west in large numbers, he feared the migration of whites would come to a halt, thereby receding growth and progress in that region."

In June of 1848, Lincoln joined other whig in Philadelphia to nominate the Mexican war hero General Zachary Taylor for president. Seward was not happy about that.

A Buffalo delegate asked Bates to be a candidate for vice president, but he turned it down. Later, the Buffalo Convention nominated Martin Van Buren president and Charles Francis Adams vice president.

When voting time came around, the Whigs triumphed and Zachary Taylor became president.

On February 1, 1850, Lincoln's three year old son Eddie died from tuberculosis. After that, Mary went into such a deep depression that she rarely ever ate, and when she did, Abraham had to pretty much shove it down her mouth, because he was the only one who could coax force her into eating.

Once Abraham took up law practice again, he became less interested in politics. While Lincoln's political ambition slowed down, Seward and Chase's gained momentum. By the end of the 1840's, Chase and Seward were closer to the summit of their political power than they've ever been, and Bates was a respected national figure.

Summary of Chapter Three of TEAM OF RIVALS

This chapter explains mostly about how Bates, Seward, Lincoln and Chase started doing stuff with politics, which lead to them running for president. This chapter, which was named 'The Lure of Politics' was the longest chapter (58 pages) I've read so far, and maybe the longest in the book. (There's another that could be as long, but I could be wrong.)

Edward Bates was drawn to politics during the crusade for Missouri's statehood in 1820. There were many arguments going on about if the laws of slavery that were in the original states should be applied to the new states, or not. Many Northerners hoped that if slavery was contained in the South that it wouldn't spread to other states, which would eventually end slavery. Bates served two terms in the state legislature and was elected president of the River and Harbor convention. (Abe Lincoln was there.)

Bates married Julia Coalter in 1823, and soon after had a son who he named Joshua Barton Bates after his partner who was killed in a duel. After Joshua Barton, Bates had 16 more children- 17 in all. When Bates heard that he had missed the birth of his first daughter (who was named Nancy), he was really sad, because he really wanted to see what she looked like. Bate's son, (Julian) had a horrible stutter. His stutter stopped one day and nobody knew why. Bates thought that that was the most amazing thing in the world. However, the stutter did reappear six months later.

Seward entered politics with the help of Thurlow Weed after being bored with practicing law for a long time. With help from Weed, Seward got elected into the state senate at age 29. In September of 1834, Weed told some friends from the whig party at a convention in Utica, New York that Seward would be the best governor against the democrats. When the votes were tallied, Seward lost. When Seward ran for governor again in 1838, he won, but Weed helped him. He was reelected governor in 1840, but the margin of which he won was much smaller.

When Lincoln ran for the state legislature at age 23, he got in- pardon the reference to Tron Legacy, if anybody noticed- and was in it for eight years. Lincoln believed that slavery was wrong and so did his parents, despite living in the slave state of Kentucky. He believed that "if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." The Lincoln family eventually moved to the free state of Indiana, "partly on the account of slavery." Lincoln paid less attention to slavery than Chase or Seward, for, like I said before, If slavery was kept contained in the South, it would eventually die out. When Lincoln married Mary Todd Lincoln in front of a small group of friends and family on November 4, 1842, Mary Todd wasn't used to doing housework such as doing laundry, washing dishes, and other things because she grew up having slaves who did all of the housework for her. Abraham, on the other hand, had no difficulty doing this, because he grew up chopping wood for the fire and other manly things like that.

In 1836, James G. Birney created an antislavery newspaper called The Philanthropist. That July, a mob broke into the shop where The Philanthropist was printed and dismantled the printing press, and tore up the upcoming edition. Birney continued printing The Philanthropist until two weeks later, another mob attacked his shop, tore apart the entire office, threw TLC (tables, ladders and chairs, not tender loving care like you may think) and the printing press out the windows, which were carried out to a river nearby and were drowned by other members of the mob. (Is drowned the proper word for it?)

Chase was appalled by this. So appalled, in fact, that he decided to do stuff about it. Yes, that's right. he did stuff. Well, by doing stuff, Chase became pretty well known in the antislavery community. And as I said before, Chase made sure that slavery would be ended. Remember, kids: if you do stuff, you could end up as famous as an almost president! So keep up the good work of doing stuff, kids!

Black children were outlawed from going to school, but their parents had to pay school taxes like the white children who did go to school. Blacks were also banned from the witness box, even if their party was white. And if it couldn't get any worser, whites committed crimes in front of blacks so that they didn't get caught and get put in jail.

Well, I hope you learned something. Even if it was just to do stuff to become an almost president. At least that's something.

Summary of Chapter Two of TEAM OF RIVALS

In this chapter (titled 'The Longing To Rise') explained mostly about how the four main characters (William Seward, Abraham Lincoln, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates, in case you forgot) grew up.

Out of the four characters, Bates was the oldest. He was born when George Washington was president. Seward and Chase grew up during the Jefferson administration, and Lincoln was born shortly before Jefferson became president. In that era, people were encouraged to get a job, and from that many cities and towns were made, as well as a lot of new roads, bridges and canals. In the southern region, people headed toward the Mississippi River, and slavery followed. But enough with all of that geography-related stuff. Let's get on with what you really read this for: the childhoods of the four main characters.

Seward was the fourth of six children. His father, Samuel Seward, got a large fortune from being a physician, magistrate, judge, land speculator and a member of the New York state legislature. (They lived in New York at the time). Seward's mother (Mary Jennings Seward) was well known in the community for her warmth, good sense and kind manner.

Like all wealthy land owners, the Sewards owned slaves, but, unlike other slaveowners, the Seward family was nice to their slave. Once when Seward was a child, Seward saw a slave boy being whipped. He thought that was very unusual, because his family never whipped their slaves. Once, a neighbor's slave escaped from their house (the neighbor's house, not Seward's), but was captured soon after and brought back in chains. The slave ran away again, and this time he wasn't captured.

Salmon Chase was born in New Hampshire. His father was a farmer, justice of the peace, and Representative of his district in the New Hampshire council and when Chase was seven, his father was an investor of a glass factory. When Chase was 12, he and his family traveled to Worthington, Cleveland to visit his uncle. For some reason, Salmon Chase didn't enjoy Worthington.

When he was 13, he was a freshman in college. Like Seward, Chase studied three years of law in a two year time frame.

Chase married Catherine "Kitty" Ludlow, until she died in 1835. He was remarried to Eliza Ann Smith, who, like Catherine, died. Chase married a third time to Sarah Belle Ludlow, who once again died. After that, Chase never married again.

Edward Bates was the youngest of three children. His father worked as a planter and a merchant and considered Thomas Jefferson an James Madison (those guys were presidents, in case you didn't know. I wouldn't just add two random guys to make this story seem longer than it really is, but I guess that's what I'm doing right now, so I should probably shut up.) Anyways, Bates secured a position reading law with help from his brother, who was eventually killed in a duel.

Lincoln's father, Thomas, could only write his name (but nothing else) and he couldn't read at all, for he had only been taught to work on the farm, and not to read. Abraham Lincoln's father said he saw his father (Abe's grandfather) murdered by a Shawnee raiding tribe, or, as it says in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Graham-Smith, by vampires. (As you may expect, because the title says vampire right in it.)

Thomas Lincoln was married to Nancy Hanks. Unlike her husband, she could read and write, so she taught young Abe how to do both of those, because in the schools of those times barely gave any educations. (The only thing required of a teacher to know was the Rule of Three: "readin', writin' and cipherin.'") Nancy Hanks died in 1919 from milk sickness, along with Abe's aunt and uncle, whose names were Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow. Milk sickness is said to have come from drinking tainted milk, and the effects of milk sickness are pretty bad. Those effects include dizziness, nausea, irregular heartbeat, then after all of those fairly bad things, you slip into a coma. Since there was no doctors for many miles around, and there was no cure for it back then, both the aunt and uncle died, and a short time later, Nancy died, too.

After his wife died, Thomas Lincoln traveled from Indiana to Kentucky to find a wife, which left the Lincoln kids alone without any parents in their log cabin. (Again, this was the 1800's. Not as many parents leave their children alone in their house while they travel the country, but I could just be imagining that.) Thomas eventually came back home with a new wife, Sarah Bush Lincoln. When she first saw the Lincoln children, she scrubbed them down because they were supposedly too dirty.

Well, I hope you learned something. If you didn't, keep being smart.

The Summary of Chapter One of TEAM OF RIVALS

As most books go, chapter one tells about the main characters. How they look, act, smell, and so on. Team of Rivals isn't any different. In the first chapter of Team of Rivals called 'Four Men Waiting', it explained about the four main characters, Abraham Lincoln, Edward Bates, Salmon Chase, and William Henry Seward and how they were candidates for the president of the United States.

When Abraham Lincoln ran for president, he was fifty-one years old. Because he had lost two senate races and a term in congress, none of the other presidential candidates expected him to become the president.  (Not to spoil anything, but Abraham Lincoln does become president, not that that would spoil anything, though. You should have known that since you were in first grade.) Others were more experienced in that field, so they just decided that they would just knock Abe out of the race immediately. But Lincoln turned out to be really good at making speeches, which comes in handy if you are running for president. On February 27, 1860, Lincoln gave a speech to over 1500 people about how slavery should be confined so it doesn't spread any more than it already has. Well, everybody who heard the speech from the newspapers or from actually being there thought it was bodacious. That made Bates, Chase, and Seward reconsider that they were the bestest. (Well, maybe not, but they were probably pretty shocked at good old Abe's skills.)

William Henry Seward was just nine years older than Lincoln when he ran for president. Seward was so confident that he would win against Lincoln, Bates, and Chase that he wrote his acceptance speech before the voting took place. That's some confidence. He woke every morning at six a.m. to go outside to work on his garden that was spread over the five acres of land he owned before it was time for breakfast. After breakfast, he would go to his study (basically an office) to write. While he wrote, he would smoke. When one cigar ran out, he would light another and keep smoking. He would usually go through six or more cigars a day. If Seward won the election for president, that wouldn't guarantee all of the other candidates a chance of winning, because all of the chances of winning depended on Seward's failure.

Salmon Chase was fifty-two year old widower when he was running for president. Like Seward, Chase had a good chance of winning the election, for he had been a senator in Ohio a few years back, so that gave him good chances. Unlike Seward of Lincoln, though, Chase always dressed up. Lincoln and Seward were known to have greet people at the door in their night clothes, but Chase was almost never seen dressed in a suit and tie. Also unlike Seward, Salmon Chase thought that going to the theater and reading novels were a huge waste of time, and playing cards falsely excited the mind. Chase also had two daughters, one which he liked a lot more than the other. His favorite was named Kate, which he sent to boarding school for ten years. If you wanted more information on the other daughter, go look it up. Team of Rivals didn't say much about the other daughter.

Now for the last candidate, Edward Bates. Edward Bates was 66 and his wife was 37 when he ran for president. Surprisingly, Bates and his wife had seventeen children, but only eight of them survived to adulthood. Bates must not have been feeling pretty confident first, because he refused to put his name on the ballot at first. But, eventually he did, and that's how he became a candidate for president.

Well, that was the first chapter. I know. That's a lot of stuff to comprehend at once. If you can't comprehend it well, read it again. If you still can't comprehend it after rereading it, then, well, read it again.

Why I'm Reading TEAM OF RIVALS

Hello. This is Simon. You may be wondering why in the world a boy this young is reading a book that is so overwhelmingly difficult that very few adults would dare think about reading because it's so hard. Well, wonder no more.

I started reading this extremely large book because I wanted to.

"WHAT?!? A thirteen year old boy chose to read an extremely long book?!? This is really unusual," you may say. Well, it's true. I wasn't forced to read Team of Rivals by a language arts teacher to read it for summer reading (my L.A. teacher isn't that mean), or some school-related reason like that. I just wanted to. And to tell you the truth, it is interesting, no matter how long and difficult it may be.

Well, I guess that's all. You've heard the interesting back story. Now it's time to get on with the interesting part: the summary of the book. Why would we need a summary of the book, you may ask. Well, for two main reasons.

Reason 1) For proof that I actually read the book, and not just quickly flipped through the pages quickly and said I read it.
Reason 2) This blog really would only be one post long. And it would be extremely boring.

So, keep reading and hopefully you will be interested in it. otherwise this blog will be long. And boring. But if you have to summarize Team of Rivals for a class you're in and you stumbled upon this, a huge summary of Team of Rivals, it doesn't matter if it's interesting or not. You just have to get it done*. So get reading!


WARNING:
You may just have gone into a minor coma because of the fact that a thirteen year old was reading Team of Rivals. Don't blame me for putting people into comas with my impressive reading skills. And no matter how nicely you ask, I won't pay your medical bills.

*If you really are using this for a project in school, be sure to say I helped, or else I will stop posting on this blog, and all of my loyal followers will leave. And I don't think you can deal with being that guy.