1. In chapters seven and eight, Abe Lincoln is in his second term of
presidency and the war is going in the right direction. Abe's final Das
were spent in a state of peace before he was assassinated. The authors
main argument was that Abe did not want the war to continue and he
really did try his absolute best to improve the leadership roles in the
country an abolish slavery completely. The author provides evidence by
inserting quotes from Abe's speeches in the text.
2. In the text we hear the voice of Abe Lincoln mostly. We hear
about. His thoughts on the war, his thoughts about his cabinet, and his
aspirations. We also briefly hear about the thoughts of some of his
prior cabinet members-turned-running competition. For example, we learn
that a few people often disagreed with Lincoln such as secretary of the
navy Gideon Welles. Welles disagreed with Lincoln on the matter of
suspending habeas corpus. Welles didn't actually tell Lincoln of this
but kept it in a diary.
3. Our work in our class reading really helped me to understand just
exactly how much death the war caused. Reading the sort article on the
REAL estimate on the total deaths helps to truly understand not only the
direct causes but the indirect causes of death. People not only Died
from fighting , but from disease, hunger, living conditions and many
other factors. This brought the number of estimated deaths from around
600,000 all the way upwards of 800,000.
4. Some questions that came up included how could the number of death
be so off? What did women do to contribute during the civil war? And
what were john Wilkes booths motives for killing the president? we
concluded that the reason for the death toll being off is that not
everyone that died was accounted for , there were many unknown men
gifting in the war and after death had no one to survive them. Also
people died from indirect causes of the war. During the civil war
women's most important role was either tending to the wounded or trying
to reclaim the dead soldiers and sending their bodies back home.
Although we didn't discuss the motives of john Wilkes booths actions ,
it's safe I assume that it was due to a disgust for Abe Lincoln and
disagreement with his policies.
5. The biggest question I'm left wondering is was Abe Lincoln truly
happy in his last days? Depression is a difficult thing to deal with and
doesn't suddenly go away , so even though those around him saw him in
an improved state, what was he really feeling on the inside?