“I do not think you are capable of reasoned debate on an issue about which you feel emotion.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word
and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin,
we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago...”
William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1121143-intruder-in-the-dust
I’m from Arizona. I have no dog in this fight. But while it is OK for a 14 year old boy to want Pickett’s Charge to turn out differently, adults need to face facts. Less than two weeks before the SOUTH fired on Ft Sumter, Lincoln’s Secretary of State was arguing in favor of war with Spain and France INSTEAD of fighting the South! Lincoln spent much of his first month in office dealing with people wanting jobs in the Administration and trying to get his cabinet into place. He was getting conflicting advice from every “expert”. He was willing to trade abandoning forts in the South in exchange for a border state staying neutral.
There was no grand plan. Lincoln repeatedly found he couldn’t even get his own orders obeyed on a regular basis, and cabinet officer were issuing conflicting orders on their own account. Lincoln had no grand plan. He was groping in darkness, trying to figure out the best response.
But all that conflicts with the Lost Causers image of the evil mastermind Lincoln, trying to wage unholy war against their pure society - pure, at least, for those who were not slaves! And in South Carolina, that would be about half the population.
Here is the order to Captain Samuel Mercer relieving him of command of the Powhatan. This order was hand written by Lincoln, and hand carried by Lieutenant Porter. Lieutenant Porter's own hand written orders from Lincoln have never been released. Porter never detailed what was in them, but clearly they authorized him to fire on Confederate Ships and Confederate shore emplacements, because that is exactly what he did.
1861 Order to Captain Samuel Mercer.(Confidential.)
WASHINGTON CITY, April 1, 1861
SIR:--Circumstances render it necessary to place in command of your ship (and for a special purpose) an officer who is fully informed and instructed in relation to the wishes of the Government, and you will therefore consider yourself detached. But in taking this step the Government does not in the least reflect upon your efficiency or patriotism; on the contrary, have the fullest confidence in your ability to perform any duty required of you. Hoping soon to be able to give you a better command than the one you now enjoy, and trusting that you will have full confidence in the disposition of the Government toward you, I remain, etc.,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
So yeah, about your "accidentally signed a document in a pile of other documents" bullsh*t. No, Lincoln didn't "accidentally" relieve Mercer of Command and put Porter in his place. It was quite deliberate.