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.)