A Wife’s Dis­ap­point­ment unfolds amid ris­ing ten­sions in Wash­ing­ton, where a new­ly formed “Select Com­mit­tee” takes cen­ter stage in inves­ti­gat­ing the grow­ing sus­pi­cions of trea­son with­in the gov­ern­ment. The “Com­mit­tee of Five,” which includes two Repub­li­cans, two pro-Union Democ­rats from the North, and one South­ern Demo­c­rat, is tasked with uncov­er­ing any threats that might under­mine the Union’s sta­bil­i­ty. This com­mit­tee, pro­pelled by infor­ma­tion from Edwin M. Stan­ton, the new­ly appoint­ed attor­ney gen­er­al, delves into alle­ga­tions of dis­loy­al­ty. Stanton’s covert com­mu­ni­ca­tions point to Isaac Toucey, the Sec­re­tary of the Navy, sug­gest­ing that his inac­tion as South­ern forces over­took the fed­er­al navy yard in Pen­saco­la is indica­tive of betray­al. The com­mit­tee uncov­ers a trou­bling real­i­ty: twen­ty-eight naval ships remain unfit for ser­vice, despite a sig­nif­i­cant repair bud­get being allo­cat­ed for their main­te­nance. This rev­e­la­tion paints a grim pic­ture of the Navy’s pre­pared­ness in the face of grow­ing South­ern aggres­sion.

As polit­i­cal unrest esca­lates and con­cerns of a South­ern coup inten­si­fy, the com­mit­tee shifts its focus to inves­ti­gat­ing pos­si­ble threats against the cap­i­tal, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Lin­col­n’s inau­gu­ra­tion fast approach­ing. The sit­u­a­tion grows more tense as rumors cir­cu­late about an impend­ing insur­rec­tion, which spurs mil­i­tary action. Gen­er­al Win­field Scott, a key fig­ure in the mil­i­tary, responds by deploy­ing addi­tion­al troops to Wash­ing­ton in an attempt to quell fears of an upris­ing. This tem­po­rary show of force alle­vi­ates some anx­i­ety, but the larg­er issue of the South’s resent­ment toward the North remains unre­solved. Wash­ing­ton, as the seat of pow­er, becomes the focal point of both polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary strate­gies, with offi­cials on high alert for any signs of insur­rec­tion. The sense of an impend­ing cri­sis becomes tan­gi­ble, as each pass­ing day brings the nation clos­er to the brink of con­flict.

With­in Con­gress, the divi­sions between “Black” Repub­li­cans and South­ern Democ­rats grow more pro­nounced, with fierce debates fur­ther frac­tur­ing the polit­i­cal land­scape. Jef­fer­son Davis, a promi­nent fig­ure in the South, voic­es his con­cerns about the loom­ing threat of war, which sparks a sur­pris­ing­ly con­cil­ia­to­ry response from Sen­a­tor Seward. In a move that shocks many, Seward aligns with some South­ern sen­ti­ments, argu­ing that states should have the right to reg­u­late their own poli­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the issue of slav­ery. This posi­tion, while intend­ed to ease ten­sions, is met with strong dis­ap­proval from many Repub­li­cans, includ­ing Seward’s own wife. She open­ly crit­i­cizes her husband’s readi­ness to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion in order to pro­tect slav­ery and pre­serve the Union, high­light­ing her dis­ap­point­ment with his will­ing­ness to com­pro­mise on what she sees as a fun­da­men­tal moral issue. Her reac­tion under­scores the per­son­al and ide­o­log­i­cal divides that were grow­ing not only in the nation but with­in the very house­holds of its lead­ers.

Despite Seward’s attempts at con­cil­i­a­tion, his posi­tion reveals a crit­i­cal mis­un­der­stand­ing of the deep­er issues at play. The South’s increas­ing resent­ment toward the North’s moral con­dem­na­tion of slav­ery becomes more pro­nounced, with many South­ern­ers view­ing this stance as a direct attack on their hon­or and way of life. The moral out­rage that the North felt toward slav­ery was per­ceived in the South as an exis­ten­tial threat to their iden­ti­ty, fur­ther fuel­ing the divide. As this resent­ment sim­mered, the poten­tial for vio­lence grew, and the del­i­cate polit­i­cal bal­ance that Seward sought to pre­serve began to col­lapse. Lin­coln, too, strug­gled with under­stand­ing how to bridge this grow­ing chasm. While he rec­og­nized that the issue of slav­ery lay at the heart of the nation­al dis­cord, he acknowl­edged that the divi­sions were so entrenched that they could not be eas­i­ly resolved through polit­i­cal nego­ti­a­tion. The rift between North and South, which had been build­ing for years, was now on the verge of erupt­ing into full-scale war, with both sides unwill­ing to com­pro­mise on what they saw as their fun­da­men­tal rights and val­ues.

Seward’s efforts to tem­per the ten­sions by accom­mo­dat­ing the South were futile because the core issue—the moral oppo­si­tion to slavery—was irrec­on­cil­able. The South’s insis­tence on pre­serv­ing slav­ery as an insti­tu­tion was root­ed in eco­nom­ic, social, and cul­tur­al val­ues that the North viewed as out­dat­ed and unjust. As a result, any attempt to pla­cate the South only served to fur­ther alien­ate those in the North who saw slav­ery as a moral wrong. Lincoln’s nav­i­ga­tion of this treach­er­ous polit­i­cal ter­rain became even more com­plex as the nation drift­ed clos­er to civ­il war. The real­i­ty that the coun­try could not rec­on­cile its fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ences regard­ing slav­ery was becom­ing unde­ni­able, and the loom­ing threat of vio­lence seemed inevitable as each pass­ing day brought the nation clos­er to a break­ing point.

Through this chap­ter, the emo­tion­al and polit­i­cal tur­moil of a nation on the brink of war is laid bare. The per­son­al dis­ap­point­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the Seward house­hold, mir­ror the larg­er nation­al cri­sis, reflect­ing the deep divides that exist­ed with­in both fam­i­lies and gov­ern­ments alike. The fail­ure to reach a polit­i­cal solu­tion to the slav­ery issue, com­bined with the grow­ing mis­trust between the North and South, set the stage for the Civ­il War. Lincoln’s chal­lenge was not only to nav­i­gate the polit­i­cal intri­ca­cies of a divid­ed nation but also to man­age the intense emo­tions and con­flict­ing inter­ests that would ulti­mate­ly define the course of the war. The chap­ter cap­tures a piv­otal moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, where the ide­al of union col­lid­ed with the harsh real­i­ty of an entrenched moral divide, one that would soon tear the nation apart.