Edwin Stanton

For Gods sake, send this man some shoes! Send him horses, send him tents, send him as many men as can be found. Put an end to these eternal excuses before the nation is lost for the lack of shoes!
Stanton had never heard the President yell before, and his right hand went immediately to his beard, which he tugged like it had never been tugged before. He wanted to remind the President that a million boots and a trillion horses would probably not be enough for the traitor McClellan. He wanted to remind the President of the reports that the Confederate army routinely marched without shoes and slept without tents but he lost his nerve and his audience at the same time as Lincoln bolted out of the telegraph office and back to the Executive Mansion.

The preceding passage is an excerpt from To Make Men Free, and may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.