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.