Wintering Period

QUOTE

John Lubbock once said…

“Rest is not idleness.”

(English scientist and polymath)

CONCEPT

Wintering Period

A wintering period is a stretch of life marked by retreat, difficulty, or dormancy—when progress slows, energy wanes, and outward growth pauses.

The term is often used metaphorically to describe seasons of grief, illness, failure, burnout, or transition.

In nature, winter is not wasted time; it is when roots deepen, animals conserve strength, and ecosystems reset. Applied to human life, a wintering period invites acceptance rather than resistance. It reframes hardship as incubation.

STORY

Winter is … Here?

In the winter of 1862, Abraham Lincoln experienced one of the bleakest periods of his presidency.

The Civil War had dragged on far longer than expected. Casualties mounted into the tens of thousands. Political pressure intensified. Newspapers criticized his leadership daily. Privately, Lincoln struggled with profound depression.

Then came Fredericksburg.

In December 1862, Union forces suffered a devastating defeat in Virginia. Nearly 13,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing. The North was demoralized. Confidence in the war effort faltered. Some called for negotiation. Others called for Lincoln’s resignation.

It was a winter in every sense—military, political, personal (and literal).

Lincoln withdrew into reflection. He revised strategies. He reshuffled command. And in this dark stretch, he made one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency: he resolved to move forward with the Emancipation Proclamation.

The preliminary proclamation had been issued earlier in 1862, but final implementation required timing, resolve, and political calculation. Many advisers warned him it would divide the country further. Others urged delay.

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring enslaved people in Confederate states to be free.

The act did not end slavery immediately, nor did it win the war. But it transformed the war’s moral framework. It shifted the conflict from a struggle for union alone to a fight for human freedom.

Lincoln’s winter did not produce triumph overnight. The war would rage for two more brutal years. But historians widely recognize the winter of 1862–63 as the period in which Lincoln’s leadership hardened into moral clarity.