When she tried to nudge her husband toward the Douglas Democrats, he shot back, “I took a solemn oath to support the government and the administration, and that is now Republican.”57 But Julia, a practical woman, recognized the vast potential for wartime glory for her husband and faithfully followed his path, saying Ulysses “could no more resist the sound of a fife or a drum or a chance to fire a gun than a woman can resist bonnets.”58
