#i'd just remember he hung out with seward and that would always bring the image back to earth | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fictionadventurer · 1 year ago

Text

@scarvenartist has given me an excuse to share the latest bit of William Seward trivia that I'm overly amused by.

At Lincoln's last Cabinet meeting, the morning of the day he died, they discussed potential plans for Reconstruction. Seward wasn't able to be there, of course, what with all the recovering-from-a-broken-jaw, but he sent his son Fred in his place.

Fred read out his father's list of plans for Reconstruction, explaining that Seward had whispered this to him from his sickbed.

When he finished, Lincoln was like, "That's a long list for a man who can barely talk."

It just amuses me to think that this guy talked so much and was such a workaholic that even a broken jaw couldn't keep him quiet during Cabinet meetings.

#history is awesome #presidential talk #i needed to make sure you'd get at least one post on your dashboard about the right seward #incidentally i associate him with you now which is a big reason for my continued interest in him #also he was a very helpful figure to keep in mind during the later parts of that lincoln book #where they talk about lincoln's legacy #and it gets over-the-top in presenting him as a secular saint #i'd just remember he hung out with seward and that would always bring the image back to earth #yeah lincoln was a good guy but he was also just a guy #working in a government with other politicians #and seward is very much a politician so the association helped to keep lincoln at a human level

33 notes · View notes