I had a friend since high school who is black. He was obsessed with race, and looking for racist things to fret about, and he constantly studied the civil war.
He decided he was going to major in History in college, and I used to go over to his house to lift weights with him. One day he told me that he had just learned from his history professor that Lincoln had deliberately started the civil war.
At this time, I never thought about the civil war. It just didn't matter to me, but when he told me Lincoln had started it on purpose, knowing fully well that he was starting it, I was perplexed.
This did not jive at all with what I had been taught growing up. Didn't the Confederates start it by firing on Fort Sumter for no reason?
Well my friend told me that Lincoln had sent a letter to Major Anderson telling him he would be attacked soon, and to hold the fort for 1 day then surrender.
He was laughing as he described how Lincoln "outsmarted" those stupid Confederates.
I remembered reading the "Red Badge of Courage" in High School, and having nightmares about it, so I was a little less amused at the thought that someone would deliberately start the most bloody and vicious war this nation ever had.
All those people dead and maimed because Lincoln wanted a war?
Well his narration of what happened got me started thinking about things being different from what I had been taught. I didn't discover that letter he was talking about until years later, and it wasn't from Lincoln, it was from one of the Cabinet secretaries, and it wasn't quite so cut and dried as he had said.
It didn't flat out say Anderson would be attacked, but it strongly implied it, and it did give him permission to surrender in order to prevent loss of life.
I guess my point here is that what they teach is distorted and not accurate. When I was learning civil war history in High School I asked at the time why the Confederates attacked, and I was told at the time that they were just a bunch of "hot heads" that attacked for no good reason.
Of course I found out later they had a very good reason, and Lincoln is the one who initiated hostilities, not them.
Looking at all the propaganda about January 6th and "Insurrection" I now have a better grasp of how the people in government controlled the media back in 1861, and how these same Liberals from the Northern states are still controlling it today.
It seems to me our modern enemies are the same enemies the Confederates were fighting 160 years ago.
And they are still controlling both Washington DC, and the "news."
One more thing....having lived in 4 foreign countries I was struck immediately of course by how differently a lot of foreigners viewed historical events than what we were taught. Some of their historical interpretations were clearly jingoistic nonsense and/or excuse making for horrible acts by the tyrants in charge. Clearly the propaganda had a big effect on what they were taught and what they believed.
I thought at the time that the US had a more open educational system and was less given to teaching fairy tales about the past that happened to suit the government narrative.
As I gradually learned there was a whole different side to this conflict I had been taught nothing about, I started realizing just how much Americans had been propagandized and taught fairy tales about American history to suit the government narrative.
For example, the British quite happily taught students about how John Adams insisted after the war on the return of escaped slaves who had gone over to the Brits, how the Prime Minister at the time refused and stayed loyal to them and how the King congratulated the Prime Minister on this. Are we ever taught this in American schools? Hell no.
Think you could EVER get something like this to air on US TV? Fat chance!
Abraham Lincoln Saint or Sinner
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1848q3