oh, two decades.

学者研究的热点人物
He was for a long time all but forgotten in American history,

他被美国历史遗忘了相当长一段时间
partly because his presidency was so awful--

很可能是因为他在任总统期间糟糕的表现
and we'll deal with that later on in the course--

这个我们接下来的课还会讲到
or in some ways so awful.

或者说有些糟糕
He got miserably depressed and took to drinking--

他常常郁郁寡欢借酒消愁
that part's true--

那倒是真有其事
when he was stationed way out in California in the late-1850s.

那是在19世纪50年代末他被派遣到加州期间
He was a bit of a drunk in those years

那几年他几乎就成了一个醉汉
and he resigned from the army.

他离开了部队
He'd been a veteran of the Mexican War, decorated,

他墨西哥战争老兵经历让他看上去十分光彩
but he quit the army, bored, depressed,

但是因为乏味与压抑他选择了离开部队