22
" The politicians were in full bay, particularly those of his own party who had been urging, without success, his support of antislavery legislation which he feared would lose him the border states, held to the Union so far by his promise that no such laws would be passed. It also seemed to these Republicans that entirely too many Democrats were seated in high places, specifically in the cabinet and the army; and now their anger was increased by apprehension. About to open their campaigns for reëlection in November, they had counted on battlefield victories to increase their prospects for victory at the polls. Instead, the main eastern army, under the Democrat McClellan—“McNapoleon,” they called him—had held back, as if on purpose, and then retreated to the James, complaining within hearing of the voters that the Administration was to blame. Privately, many of the Jacobins agreed with the charge, though for different reasons, the main one being that Lincoln, irresolute by nature, had surrounded himself with weak-spined members of the opposition party. Fessenden of Maine put it plainest: “The simple truth is, there was never such a shambling half-and-half set of incapables collected in one government since the world began. "
― Shelby Foote , The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville
31
" At any rate, though he never succeeded in laughing at her, as she had done (and continued to do) at him, he fulfilled at least half of what he had predicted he would do when they were married; he beat her. The trouble was, she fought back. And ably, too: for she would snatch up any weapon that was handy, a table lamp, the nail scissors, one of her sharp-heeled shoes, an open box of dusting powder, and once her rubber douche bag. With Amy thus accoutered, husband and wife were about evenly matched. This "
― Shelby Foote , Love in a Dry Season