Confessions of a would-be Wolf of Wall Street

摘要

On the morning of May 18,1864, New Yorkers awoke to startling headlines in the New York World and in the Journal of Commerce. Their worst fears about the outcome of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's bloody Overland Campaign against Gen. Robert E. Lee in Virginia seemingly were confirmed by a timorous presidential proclamation calling for a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer." The proclamation painted the prospects for victory as distant. Although President Abraham Lincoln expressed confidence in the "courage and fidelity" of General Grant, in view of "the situation in Virginia, the disaster at Red River, the delay at Charleston, and the general state of the country," he "thought it fit to call forth" an additional 400,000 men to suppress the Rebellion. Should states fail to meet their quotas, Lincoln announced, any shortfalls would be met by "an immediate and peremptory" draft.