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marshall barkmanJoshua.... not true. You need to check other Civil War historical documneted facts. It is well known Meade was a rough character and would have killed Lincoln instantly. It is also true he had a thing for Mary Todd and Lincoln challenged him to a dual over what many historians believe to be a affair between the two. What you are reading is political cover up over the incident. Courage and Country is a psycho-biographical study of General James Shields, and his times, written by psychiatrist-journalist Dr. Sean Callan, after five years of in depth research in Ireland and America. Shields, an off-the-boat Irishman, was elected U.S. Senator from three different states, was the only commander to defeat Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in open combat, was a State Supreme Court Justice who advanced womens rights, was described as a knight-errant who lived too late, was one of the few nineteenth century national figures accepted equally on both sides of the Mason-Dixon divide, and was a man who crossed swords figuratively and almost literally with Abraham Lincoln, the US President.
Courage and Country, depicting American history from a different perspective, includes a reinterpretation of the psychological motivations underlying the swords-in-hand face off between Shields and Lincoln on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River in 1842. The inescapable conclusion is that the near duel resulted more from passion over a woman than politics. Shields proved time and again that persistence pays off. His amazing achievements did not spring merely from luck; they resulted from dogged determination and time-tested techniques that still apply today. How Shields succeeded is spelled out in this riveting account of life, politics, intensity and inspiration on the American frontier.