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.