My Commonplace Book

I’ve long been intrigued by Leo Tolstoy’s story:
   In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief “living far away from civilized life in the mountains.”
   Gathering his family and neighbors, the chief asked Tolstoy to tell [...]

Early in the Civil War, General David Hunter flooded Lincoln’s office with grumbling letters, complaining about being in command of "only 3000." Lincoln dared to make the following suggestion in a December 31, 1861 letter to Hunter, arguing that grumbling about the smallness of his role was the best way to ruin himself. Quoting a [...]

During his presidency, Abraham Lincoln often visited the Union and Confederate wounded who filled the Civil War hospitals near the White House. Father Abraham, as he became know to Union troops, would stroll through the amputee wards and visit with the most severely wounded. (In contrast, Jefferson Davis rarely visited hospitals in Richmond–too [...]