Posted on 04/09/2025 8:13:06 PM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
[OFFICIAL.]
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON April 9, 1865 -- 9 o'clock P.M.
To Maj.-Gen. Dix:
This department has received the official report of the SURRENDER, THIS DAY, OF GEN. LEE AND HIS ARMY TO LIEUT.- GEN. GRANT on the terms proposed by Gen. GRANT.
Details will be given as speedily as possible.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, 4:30 P.M., April 9.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
GEN. LEE SURRENDERED THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA THIS AFTERNOON, upon the terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.
(Signed) U.S. GRANT, Lieut-Gen'l.
SUNDAY, April 9, 1865.
GENERAL -- I received your note of this morning, on the picket line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposition of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army.
I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in you letter of yesterday for that purpose.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R.E. LEE, General.
To Lieut.-Gen. GRANT, Commanding United States Armies.
Sunday, April 9, 1865.
Gen. R.E. Lee, Commanding Confederate States Armies.
Year note of this date is but this moment, 11:50 A.M., received.
In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburgh road to the Farmville and Lynchburgh road, I am at this writing about four miles West of Walter's church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you.
Notice sent to me, on this road, where you wish the interview to take place, will meet me.
Very respectfully, your ob'd't servant,
U.S. GRANT,
Lieutenant-General.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Our American Cousin”
You know you don't want to go over the evidence, so why would you ask me for it?
If you are serious, which I very greatly doubt, we can start with how Lincoln rigged the Wig Wam convention.
You will argue "he didn't", and then if I were of a mind to do it, we would engage in another huge exchange of "look at this! See?"
You won't see any evidence of the Wig Wam being rigged, so why even start a discussion on it when we both know it's futile?
When everyone is a racist/white supremacist, you can't judge people for being racist and white Supremacist?
I don't grasp your point. In those days, virtually *EVERYONE* was both a Racist, *AND* a "White Supremacist".
They all considered blacks inferior, and they wanted blacks and whites separated. They even passed laws to insure the two groups remained as far apart as was practicable.
Lincoln wanted separation. Here is an excerpt from his discussion of the issue with some black leaders that came to the whitehouse in 1862.
You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. You here are freemen I suppose.
I've read many examples of Lincoln specifically saying that blacks need to be kept out of white societies. I remember reading in one debate that he believed getting rid of slavery would be the best way to do this.
This is from the debate, but it isn't the one I was looking for.
" I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife."
Lincoln was incredibly witty.
But he was absolutely a white supremacists and a racist.
But you've only learned what you wanted to believe.
You reject any evidence that conflicts with what you wish to believe. We can't even get you to admit Lincoln was a racist.
Lincoln made it clear to the voters in 1860 that he never had any intention of doing that. See my quote from the Lincoln/Douglas debates up above.
I look at Lincoln cynically. You take everything he says as honest and true. You can't think of him as a conniving manipulative bastard, but I can. I can see him the way you see him, but I can also see an alternative version of him as an evil man.
The problem with him being a good man, is you shouldn't be able to find examples of him doing evil things.
Over the years I recall reading things about Lincoln that are not mainstream. Insights into his character that do not comport with him being a good man.
Back in the 1970s, I read a book about Lincoln, and in it was mentioned some of his shenanigans in rigging his election to the Illinois legislature. (bribing voters, getting them drunk, re-directing his opponents bribed/drunken voters into voting for him instead.) (Also there was quip from him where he remarked that a n***er boy's member was so long he could use it for a razor strop. This left me with the impression Lincoln could be vulgar.)
I no longer recall what the name of that book was, but it had fascinating details about Lincoln, and this was long before I ever thought to question what I had been told about the civil war.
The point is, I could see Lincoln as a man rather than a god. He wasn't perfect, and he could be profane.
This view allows me to see him relieving Captain Mercer of command and giving the ship to Lt Porter as a trick, not a mistake. (Not even the New York Times believed it was a "mistake". They thought it was a clever trick.) It allows me to see Lincoln going back on his word to voters in 1860 (about blacks voting) as a cynical ploy for power, and not a change of heart. It allows me to see the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed nobody under Union control, as a cynical ploy, not an honest belief.
If you look for examples of Lincoln pulling dirty tricks, you can find them. The way he rigged the election at the wig wam is another example.
If you cannot conceive of the man behaving badly, you will simply accept all the explanations for him doing these things as "innocent."
You can't see the real man. You can only see the myth.
The percentage of families or households who owned slaves was much more than 5% in the Deep South states. That figure includes children and women who did not own any property. Add in the people who hoped to own slaves, those who were dependent on slavery for their livelihood, and those who feared what would happen if the slaves were freed and that’s a large part of the population, far more than those who cared about tariffs in any way. The slave states feared that they were losing their power. That’s not necessarily their rights.
Those are your words, and I'm saying they are no more valid or relevant than Hilary's "basket of deplorables" accusations.
By analogy, it's like accusing fish of living in water.
What's important to us is not that all fish live in water, but that some fish, many years ago, tried to crawl out of the water and live on land.
Of course, those few fish didn't suddenly begin walking on two feet and writing Shakespearean sonnets!
But they took the literal first steps which led to us doing that.
That's what's important, and why we celebrate, just as with Lincoln -- who was a moderate abolitionist at a time when at least two-thirds of US voters were perfectly content with slavery's status quo.
Lincoln's moderation was totally lost of radical Democrat secessionists, who saw Lincoln as a radical abolitionists and reason enough to declare secession from the United States.
By the end of his life, Lincoln had come to support full citizenship for freed slaves, and that's what got him assassinated, according to John Wilkes Booth.
Everything else is just nonsense and irrelevant -- just more of Hillary's "basket of deplorables" kind of talk.
Sadly, there's a lot of nonsense posted by many different groups, who each want the rest of us to be just as nuts as they are.
"Evidence" is one thing.
How we understand the real evidence is something else entirely.
And yet again, you are applying our standards to those times.
Would you equally despise George Washington, if you knew the truth about his first election?
In 1755 young George Washington was just 23 and ran for election to the Virginia House of Burgesses, from Frederick County, VA.
He lost that election because, it was said, he didn't provide enough booze for voters before they voted.
In those days, the custom was known as "swilling the planters with bumbo".
Washington learned his lesson and ran again in 1758.
This time, he wasn't physically even at his home in Mount Vernon but was a British army colonel in command of British forces of the French & Indian War in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
So, Washington's political campaign in Frederick County, VA, was managed by his friend and supporter, Col. James Wood.
Wood made certain that voters were provided with plenty of food and booze, and so Washington easily won that election, and never lost another election.
So, what do you think, does that make Washington just as "evil" as Lincoln?
Another example you often cite is the 1860 Republican convention at Chicago, in the Wig-Wam.
Do you realize that Lincoln was never in the Wig-Wam, was not even in Chicago for the convention?
Lincoln was at home in Springfield, 200 miles away.
Lincoln's instructions to his supporters were to not tie his hands with campaign promises.
Okay. So let's assume that it was 25% of households, not of the total population, owned a slave. That means 75% DID NOT own slaves.
While perhaps slavery was an issue, it was by no means the only issue for the vast majority of the population. Slavery did not affect them -- tariffs and states' rights sure did.
And, by the way, if slavery was the issue, then why in the world did it take Lincoln until 1863 to issue the emancipation proclamation -- years after the war had already started?
The South wanted out of what they perceived as an overly tyrannical rule. Why is that so hard to understand?
My words are objectively correct. They are accurate. Hillary's are just a made up smear based on her subjective opinion.
You have to be irrational to deny the evidence that Lincoln believed in ideas that today are absolutely the definition of racism and white supremacy.
By the end of his life, Lincoln had come to support full citizenship for freed slaves,
When he was trying to salvage the absolute societal and political mess he made from waging the civil war, and he saw the possibility of gaining political advantage from doing so, he decided the thing he was absolutely against in 1860 was just fine in 1865.
And you wonder why I am so cynical about him.
And "end of his life"? Lincoln did not know this was the "end of his life." He probably figured he had at least another 20 years to go, and congressmen and senators elected on the support of black votes, which would bolster his party's hold on power, sounds like a fine idea to him.
This idea among liberals of giving non-citizens the right to vote in order to gain electoral power is the same then as it is now.
Illegal immigrants are the ones they are trying to give votes too now, and it was freed blacks back in 1868, but the rational is the same. They don't care about the actual people, but they very greatly care that with their support, they will gain and hold power in Washington DC, because that's where the money is.
I posted a couple of quotes from Lincoln which demonstrate he was a racist and a white supremacist. There are scads of such quotes.
And you are trying to present this evidence as "something else entirely"?
No, it's right on point, and it's absolutely conclusive. You just can't bring yourself to admit this.
I remember you had a similar reaction when I posted information indicating Lincoln was an atheist. You can't bring yourself to contemplate the idea.
Doesn't bother me. If it was an accepted practice, then no one gains an unfair advantage if they simply do it better than the other guy.
But I think this view had changed by Lincoln's time, and bribing voters with drinking isn't the only thing Lincoln did to "win" his elections.
Do you realize that Lincoln was never in the Wig-Wam, was not even in Chicago for the convention?
Yes. Deliberately so. He relied on "bully boys" to do his dirty work in Chicago, brought in by the hundreds through his connections to the railroads. He shipped them in by rail car, and they bribed and intimidated the delegates and their supporters until they stole the nomination away from William Seward.
I sometimes wonder if Chicago corruption came first, or was the result of Lincoln's involvement in these sort of tactics.
In any case, Chicago has been the center of corruption in this nation (apart from Washington DC) for a long time.
According to Hillary's & other "woke" definitions, you, personally, DiogenesLamp, "are absolutely the definition of racism and white supremacy."
I'm saying, by such insane definitions, every human being who ever lived is "absolutely the definition of racism and white/black/brown/yellow supremacy," except possibly the Democrats' insane woke mob, and those only because they specifically define themselves differently.
I'm saying, what matters is not "racism", since the word "racism" was not even used in those days.
What matters is that in 1860 Lincoln was a moderate abolitionist, meaning he supported gradual restrictions on slavery with the long term goal of abolishing it, peacefully .
But Lincoln's "moderation" was totally lost on Southerners, especially in the Deep South, and they accused him of being a radical abolitionist, radical enough to justify their own declarations of secession from the United States.
That's what's important to history, and all your talk about "Lincoln the racist" is just babbling stupidity.
Seriously, why do you do it?
quoting BJK: "By the end of his life, Lincoln had come to support full citizenship for freed slaves..."
DiogenesLamp: "When he was trying to salvage the absolute societal and political mess he made from waging the civil war, and he saw the possibility of gaining political advantage from doing so, he decided the thing he was absolutely against in 1860 was just fine in 1865.
And you wonder why I am so cynical about him."
And yet again:
DiogenesLamp: "And "end of his life"?
Lincoln did not know this was the "end of his life."
He probably figured he had at least another 20 years to go, and congressmen and senators elected on the support of black votes, which would bolster his party's hold on power, sounds like a fine idea to him."
Sadly, you have that entirely wrong too.
Last known photo of Lincoln, April 1865:
Yes, by the end of 1864, both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were in deteriorating health conditions, though Davis later recovered and lived another 25 years, until 1889.
But Lincoln's condition was different and arguably fatal, including:
So, by the end of 1864, both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were in deteriorating health conditions but, while Davis lived on another 25 years (until December 1889), Lincoln's conditions -- Marfan syndrome or MEN-2B -- would have capped his expected lifespan well before age 60.
For certain, Lincoln appeared gaunt and sickly in 1865.
DiogenesLamp: "Illegal immigrants are the ones they are trying to give votes too now, and it was freed blacks back in 1868, but the rational is the same.
They don't care about the actual people, but they very greatly care that with their support, they will gain and hold power in Washington DC, because that's where the money is."
And so, yet again, you condemn Lincoln for helping freed-slaves migrate out of the US and you condemn Lincoln for helping freed-slaves become full citizens.
So now it's time for DiogenesLamp to confess your own opinion in this matter: you believe that Lincoln should have returned all slaves to their former "masters" while letting those "masters", in Winfield Scott's words of March 1861: "wayward sisters, depart in peace!"
And despite this, you, DiogenesLamp rejects any claims that you yourself "are absolutely the definition of racism and white supremacy.", right?
Lincoln was far from atheistic, and there are many quotes to prove it.
Here you are making my case for evaluating behavior not by our standards, but by standards & values of the time.
DiogenesLamp: "But I think this view had changed by Lincoln's time, and bribing voters with drinking isn't the only thing Lincoln did to "win" his elections."
And your evidence for this is what, exactly?
Lunatic and corrupt Hillary Clinton is not the topic of conversation here.
You are trying to ignore the fact that Lincoln was racist and was also a white supremacist.
If you don't admit things that are true, people won't see you as rational.
Again, you are unable to contemplate how a con artist can present himself as "Christian" by spouting a few quotes.
You can understand the concept with someone like Hillary Clinton, but you can't help but see Lincoln as honest.
You have a blind spot in regards to Lincoln.
His law partner says he was an atheist. Maybe the law partner is trying to exploit his relationship with Lincoln and is just making that up, but it's credible enough that it should not just be dismissed lightly.
I have no problem with evaluating people's behavior by the standards of their times, but Lincoln was a pioneer in underhanded dirty tactics of which I do not think he has an equal in that era.
Boss Tweed later, but I know of no one else who would use rail cars to carry massive numbers of fake supporters to bribe and intimidate a convention.
Of course modern liberals still use this tactic now known as "astro-turffing".
Lincoln pioneered the "rent a crowd" technique.
Yes, she absolutely is, because your definitions are just as "lunatic and corrupt" as hers.
I no more accept your definitions of Lincoln than I would Hillary's definitions of you, DiogenesLamp.
That's my point: your calling Lincoln a "racist" is just woke crazy talk.
DiogenesLamp: "You are trying to ignore the fact that Lincoln was racist and was also a white supremacist.
If you don't admit things that are true, people won't see you as rational."
Sure, by modern "woke" standards, nearly every human being in history was "racist and white/brown/black/yellow/whatever supremacist."
So it's a ridiculous accusation and irrelevant to discussion of Lincoln and the Civil War.
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