Getting to the Truth - beyond the corpses - learning to read scandal

This short scene in the movie, LINCOLN is a glimpse into scandal. A new book on scandal, Beneath the Veil of the Strange Verses Reading Scandalous Texts by Jeremiah L. Alberg defines scandal: "as those events, scenes, and representations to which we are attracted at the same moment that we are repelled. The scandalous is that which excites without satisfying, seduces without delivering, and promises without fulfilling. In one word it summarizes René Girard's analysis of mimetic desire as the doomed-to-be-frustrated reaching for the skanalon, the object of scandal." (Link here to an excerpt from René Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.)

Alberg notes that we are confronted with a stark choice: "either turn away from scandal completely or become enthralled and thus trapped by it." 

When watching the movie I thought this scene cuts to the truth of scandal and thus do we turn away from the corpses or get enthralled and trapped in the tragic. Or, as Alberg says, do we allow scandal to open us up to journey beyond the tragic and death to a deeper truth?

[Lincoln rides slowly on the frontline outside of Petersburg, Virginia, saddened by the sight of all the dead and wounded soldiers; later he meets Grant at his headquarters in in Petersburg; they sit outside on the porch]

Abraham Lincoln: Once he surrenders, send his boys back to their homes, their farms, their shops.

Ulysses S. Grant: Yes sir, as we discussed.

Abraham Lincoln: Liberality all around, not punishment, I don't want that. And the leaders, Jeff and the rest of 'em, if they escape, leave the country while my back's turned, that wouldn't upset me none. When peace comes it mustn't just be hangings.

Ulysses S. Grant: By outward appearance, you're ten years older than you were a year ago.

[Lincoln, looking very tired, nods his head]

Abraham Lincoln: Some weariness has bit at my bones.

[he pauses for a moment, thinking]

Abraham Lincoln: I never seen the like of it before. What I seen today. Never seen the like of it before.

Ulysses S. Grant: You always knew that, what this was going to be. Intimate, and ugly. You must've needed to see it close when you decided to come down here.

[Lincoln stands, puts his hat on and shakes Grant's hand]

Abraham Lincoln: We've made it possible for one another to do terrible things.

Ulysses S. Grant: We have won the war. Now you have to lead us out of it.