Two Minutes

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Two Minutes

“I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near

to the central idea of the momentous occasion, in two hours,

as you did in two minutes.”--Edward Everett.

Damn, I seem to be taking forever

                       to get over this protracted illness.

            Leave it to me to come down with

                       a mild case of smallpox.

                                   Being feverish & weak as a lame dog

                          with a constant raging headache is bad

                     enough, but it’s the hellish shingles that

             really chaps my butt--literally; what do the

        doctors call it--yes, a vesicular rash. I swear,

it’s more like a mild case of leprocy. 

        Lying abed, I have a lot of time to think about

              this quagmire of bloody conflict, of sons versus

                      fathers that our beloved America has become

                                   in 1864. I’m still reeling with emotion

over Gettysburg last year. Dear God, over 50,000 men killed,

wounded or missing in a three day battle; but I do have to chuckle

over the political rumor that I scribbled my speech on a scrap of

paper while on the train to Pennsylvania. For Christ’s sake, I pride

myself on carefully crafting all my speeches, & that address was

no exception. It was fully conceived & written out before I set foot

on that smoking brute of motion sickness.

I knew I was becoming ill on the way up there that morning of

      November 18th. I recall telling John Hay that I felt fatigued

               & weak. Lord, the next day at the ceremony I thought

                         that windbag Eddie Everett would never finish

                                 his bilious oratory; reminded me a lot of

                                          Steven Douglas; quite the stark con-

                                 trast to my two-minute commentary, deliver-

                         ed rapidly to keep from passing out. Bill Seward

                  told me later that I was pale as a ghost. that I looked

       sad & haggard, but hell’s bells, who wouldn’t be? But surely

this illness exacerbated my natural melancholia. Everett wrote me

                               that my little speech was a grand success, so

                               I suppose It wasn’t a total failure. It did surprise

                               me that presently it is being lauded as a grand

                               & significant speech, & I’ve had to make five

                               copies of it for posterity--yet we can count on

                               the Democrats to belittle it. In the Chicago Times

                               it was published: The cheek of every American 

must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat & dishwatery utterances

of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the

President of the United States.

I will tell you one thing, with me being laid up like this,

it’s glaringly evident to me that Hamlin is too much of

a milk-toast VP to ever be President. The country needs

a stronger man. When I get back on my feet, I think I’ll

approach Andy Johnson about the job--he’s got fortitude

& intelligence in spades. 

When I was swept into the White House in 1860, who would have

expected those 7 Southern states to form the Confederacy & then

fire on Ft. Sumter; complete hubris & madness. It was like pulling

molars to get the Emancipation proclamation through Congress,

& it was a minor miracle to add the 13th Amendment to the Consti-

tution outlawing slavery. I am only 55 years of age, but that is on

the outside; on the inside I feel like 100. God in Heaven, when will

this cursed war ever end?

Brother against brother,

civil war is ever bloody

disaster; no winners.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Poetics