Quotes from David M. Oshinsky

How little we seem able to do in a lifetime—and how fast the years slip by."42

Before long, public libraries had stopped lending books, gauze face masks had become regular attire, and people had stopped shaking hands.

Nugent worried instead about his own mortality—about dying on a faraway battlefield without "leaving an heir behind to … represent me hereafter in the affairs of men.

I feel surpris'd at my own composure," he noted, "and am more disposed to impute it to despair than resignation.

the nation faced a constitutional crisis in which both major presidential candidates—Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden—claimed victory in the 1876 election, raising concerns about who would govern the Republic.