The Second Greatest American

The extraordinary wartime incident at Fort Stevens fascinates us. Pause for a minute and just think about it. A twenty-three-year-old American soldier screams at the president of the United States in the midst of a battle, calls him a damned fool, and gets him out of harm's way. And then, with bullets whizzing by, they both proceed as if nothing unusual happened. All in a day's work. Nothing special. No medal, no White House ceremony, no photo op. Nothing. What a scene! It is almost too fantastic, too dramatic to be real, too amazing to be true. A movie director like Steven Spielberg could do wonders with it. Imagine the cinematic possibilities. Daniel Day-Lewis could reprise his role as Lincoln, and Jake Gyllenhaal or Ryan Gosling could play the youthful Holmes. It would be a box office hit, a patriotic classic, and what Variety would call socko boffo.