Wednesday, December 15, 2010

American Exceptionalism....Civil War style.

His greatest achievement had been the construction from green logs and saplings of a trestle 80 feet high and 400 feet long with unskilled soldier labor in less than two weeks. After looking at this bridge, Lincoln said: "I have seen the most remarkable structure that human eyes ever rested upon. That man, Haupt, has built a bridge...over which loaded trains are running every hour, and upon my word, gentlemen, there is nothing in it but beanpoles and cornstalks." (p. 527, Battle Cry of Freedom)
I'll get to talking about the filibuster. Maybe I'll even figure out a way that this is relevant to my argument. But I have to return Battle Cry of Freedom to the library today, so it seemed important to lift my favorite quote before I did.

No comments:

Post a Comment