Posted on 04/06/2003 5:26:16 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
Edited on 07/20/2004 11:48:37 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Richmond welcomed Abraham Lincoln back with patriotic music, enthusiastic applause and boos yesterday, 138 years after he entered the smoldering capital of the Confederacy.
Smiling children and dignitaries slowly lifted a forest green cloth, unveiling a life-size bronze statue of Lincoln and his son, Tad, at a spot near the James River.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
I know how the bloody thing got placed in the Capitol. No accounting for taste, is there?
Andersonville was indeed a tragedy. But if you insist upon comparing war crimes, consider that more POW's from the CSA died in Northern prison camps than the total of yankees who died in Southern ones. Andersonville is famous in part because it was politicized during and after the war. Northern prison camps like Point Lookout, MD were every bit as wretched in their conditions if not more so, and the death stats show it.
Sherman was a borderline war criminal, Lincoln was not.
Sherman was not alone in his war crimes. His subordinate generals carried out brutalities against civilians across the area where he marched. Other union generals permitted the same elsewhere in the south. As for Lincoln being complicit, one cannot deny that a captain is responsible for what occurs on his ship. In other words, one cannot credit Lincoln for the victories of his commanders while simultaneously denying him any part in their widespread wrongs.
Donald reports the events but doesn't comment on whether or not the threat was real. He points out that Lincoln himself came to doubt that any threat had existed and that he regretted the way he agreed to travel.
Your "history" sounds a bit too noble to be true. "Lincoln refused to alter his plans." What a hoot! What was this all about if not altering plans? I read these things with a jaundiced eye, and you would too if you were honest about it. Here is what the Times "Special Correspondent" had to say:
National Hotel, Washington, Sunday Feb. 24, 1861 [pub Feb 26, p 8]and (unattributed):How came he to do it? Who influenced him, and what for? are questions one hears continually [all over] this city. For what did Mr. Lincoln rush hastily and unexpectedly from the good people of Harrisburgh, fly at lightening pace across the States of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and enter unannounced the Capitol of the Nation? ...
There are two answers given by the divided partizan to the question which opens this letter. One is that by request of Mr. Seward and certain prominent Republican members of the Peace Conference, Mr. Lincoln appeared here several hours in advance of the advertised time that he might confer with the Convention on points of vital interest to the country. The other answer is, that friends of Mr. Lincoln having one grand object in view, namely the safe arrival of the President elect, pursued the course which promised the surest success. ...
On Thursday night while Mr. Lincoln was resting at the Continental Hotel [Philadelphia], certain reliable parties called upon him and laid before him the following information ... The three plans, by one of which the conspirators expected to prevent the safe conveyance of Mr. Lincoln to Washington, were these:
1. At some point on this side of the Maryland line, the train conveying the party was to be thrown from the track and precipitated down an embankment. ...
2. In case it was deemed best to allow the first plan to go by default, it was determined by means of an infernal machine to blow up the car in which Mr. Lincoln was to ride. ...
3. The favorite ... was to surround the carriage in which Mr. Lincoln would ride from depot to depot in the City of Baltimore ... At a convenient opportunity the keen stiletto would be buried in the heart of the President elect ...
It was at once determined that Mr. Lincoln should go to Harrisburgh, by the special train, as already proposed and from thence should retrace his steps. At the very outside limit, not more than five persons were cognisant of the change ...
The information had been given under an injunction of secresy to the representatives of the Times and one other journal. ... We were bound by honor not to attempt to use it until the morning and did not. ...
[Pub Feb 25, 1861, p. 4] The City was startled by the intelligence, contained in an extra edition of the Times [apparently not on microfilm BTW], that the President elect, instead of proceeding on his journey to Washington from Harrisburgh, in accordance with the published programme, on Saturday morning, had left the latter city secretly, on a special train, on Friday night, and returning to Philadelphia, had passed thence, unrecognized, through Baltimore, and was already in the Federal Capital. ...It's up to you to judge which source you believe most credible. I choose the guy from the Times, and think your Donald has cleaned the story up a bit. That's the problem, isn't it, people relying upon cleaned up history?
Also I would guess that Lincoln regretted the way he traveled because of the ridicule he incurred.
ML/NJ
Then why do you make a false comparison with its placement there to that of The Lincoln's statue in Richmond?
It was more The Fact that they could put The Statue of The Davis on The Lawn and it wouldn't be vandalized. But President Lincoln's statue will be desecrated within weeks. Like I said, we're more adult about it.
What makes you think that? Vandals have graffitied all over the DC WWI memorial on the national mall, so I have little doubt they'd do the same if not worse to a Jefferson Davis statue. In fact, some yankee sympathizers recently spray painted profanities, swastikas, and anti-confederate messages all over the Davis statue in New Orleans, and that isn't even up north! Had it been in D.C. instead of New Orleans, I wouldn't be surprised if they found dismembered pieces of metal from it welded to the hood of a $200 el camino with a $2,000 stereo system. Vandalism is alive and well in yankee land, non-seq.
Your choice would seem to be to go with the one that agrees with the view you already have. It doesn't matter that "my" version (It's not MY version.) was written by someone who was there, and Donald's version written in 1996, without footnotes judging from the sample pages at Amazon. I find it odd that it doesn't seem to bother you that Donald added details to the story which make Lincoln seem more heroic, and omitted mention of details which would reflect negatively on Lincoln's character.
The fact that you think that there is a genuine choice as to which is more likely to be an accurate depiction of what really happened, sort of disqualifies your comments from serious consideration on these sorts of threads.
ML/NJ
That's down south, and maybe it was by some Alexander Stephens supporters. The Gettysburg battlefield is full of monuments to the southern side and none of them are vandalized that I'm aware of.
Ah but the Donald book is footnoted. For the Baltimore plot Donald gives five sources: "Lincoln and the Baltimore Plot" by Norma Cuthbert, "Pictoral History of the Civil War" by Benson Lossing, "Anecdotes of Public Men" by John Forney, Pinkerton's narrative and the narrative by Ward Lamont, both of whom were there.
Considering that some of the profanity-laced grafittis on it were anti-confederacy, that is highly unlikely.
The Gettysburg battlefield is full of monuments to the southern side and none of them are vandalized that I'm aware of.
I would be surprised if there were not any at Gettysburg. Vandalism is fairly common at battlefield monuments. For example, a few years ago at Shiloh somebody vandalized Texas monument and stole the marker of the spot where Albert Sydney Johnston was shot. Considering the number of people who flow through Gettysburg, it is unlikely that it has not experienced the same.
Scientist are trying to find out why Sherman's grave in St. Louis has a yellow tint to it. :)
1. What is your definition of a "yankee", and 2. how do you know it was a yankee?
If it weren't for him, every son of Dixie might be the cabana boy/fellater for Sheik Saud Mohammed bin Sola bim.
Abraham Lincoln saved the South from being overun by Muslim Jihadists? Uh, OK. If you say so.
Well, according to Ambrose Bierce, the term is defined in the following manner:
YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)
My definition would include those residents of the northern states of the union stretching from roughly Illinois to Maine. and 2. how do you know it was a yankee?
For whatever reason, your quote of me lacked precision. In full, I stated "In fact, some yankee sympathizers," while you cut off the word "sympathizers" leaving only yankee. By yankee sympathizers, I mean someone who is supportive of the yankee side and historical interpretation of the war. Such a person could be a yankee by residence, or simply someone who aligns himself with that side (including, among other possibilities, a scalawag).
Guess you forgot about the mural or Robert E. Lee that was firebombed right here in Richmond.
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