Abraham Lincoln

[bombshoo]

So we can all agree that Sherman was a bit of a jerk then?

 

[Tabasco Sauce]

The Best. What would History be like with a Independent Confederacy and a vengeful USA?

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Since I'm not all that well versed in American history, I won't vote. From what I know about Lincoln, though, he seems like he was above average, although he seems to have used the anti-slavery thing more as a political tool than it being his own morales. Didn't his family own slaves? To me, the best President would probably be FDR.

 

[North King]

Didn't his family own slaves?

I have never heard of this before, so unless you have a definite source, I doubt it highly. Several US Presidents owned slaves, including Jefferson, but not Lincoln.

 

[privatehudson]

His wife Mary's family were from Kentucky and owned slaves, Shelby Foote states in the first volume of his The Civil War a Narrative:

Accustomed to Negro house slaves in Kentucky, Mary Lincoln could not get along with Illinois hired girls, who were inclined to answer back.

His parents did not own slaves and held anti-slavery views, something that may have induced them to leave Kentucky. I believe that many of his less immediate family did own slaves, for example his own uncle, and his father's uncle.

I suppose therefore it all depends on how you define "his family".

 

[Pannonius]

Your uncle is your family.
I do think that the Confederacy had the legal right to leave the Union, but I think Lincoln was a decent man. He did his duty.

 

[privatehudson]

I'm not saying those people weren't relatives, but for the purposes of whether Lincoln himself, or his immediate family (i.e. those he could be said to have any influence over) owned slaves they don't count in my book. Only if he had owned slaves himself, his children had, or if Mary continued to own them after their marriage would it be of any relevance to him.

In the Civil War you could pick just about any major figure and discover people in their family tree with leanings towards the other side, often even fighting for them. Lincoln himself once felt the need to appear before a congressional committe to deny that any of his family had been holding treasonable communication with the enemy.

 

[Nylan]

I'm Southerner and I'm glad Lincoln handed the CSA its arse on a silver platter, it deserved it.

You're not a southerner, you're a Texan

You mean like holding the city of Baltimore hostage with orders to open the battlements of Ft. McHennry on the city and its civilians if the elected congressional delegates dared to leave their illegal house arrest and vote ( you know voting what they were elected to do) for what their citizens of the state wanted.

Don't know much about this. Could you elaborate?

Maybe we can go over the suppression of Habius Corpus? Yup its true. If Bush is so evil for doing it then so is Lincoln right?

As has already been stated, times of rebellion are an exception.

And that "honest Abe" title isn't there because he was honest. Its there for the same reason you call a fat guy Tiny.


<snip>

Hmmmm can you smell the hypocrisy. I guess unless that government is Lincoln its ok to revolt.

Your reasoning here all hinges on the definition of an "unjust government", which the Union was not...by any means.

Then there is the whole special interest aspect of why he changed his tune. If he let the states go on their own the northeastern manufacturing corps that payed for his election campaign would have lost lots and lots of money in tariffs.

So now you're throwing a strawman at a man that has been dead for how long? This is dependent on your previous statement...which fails to convince.

Then there is the deliberate infusion of christian dogma into the secular government. "In god we trust", yup that Abe's doing.

I don't think you understand the true meaning and purpose of antidisestablishmentarianism, do you? In any case, that's not anywhere near an attack on Lincoln unless you can definitively prove that its a heinous crime. Until it stops being a semi-controversial topic, you've got nothing there.

What about Sherman's march?That was a real war crime. But the burning of private property killing of civilians and all around pillaging were nothing new. The north those tactics from the beginning. Then there was Sherman's burning of the entire town of Randolph, Tennessee, to the ground. He also began taking civilian hostages and either trading them for federal prisoners of war or executing them. Oh and Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi, were also burned to the ground by Sherman's troops even though there was no Confederate army there to oppose them. The Geneva Convention of 1863 condemned the bombardment of cities occupied by civilians, but Lincoln ignored all such restrictions on his behavior. The bombardment of Atlanta destroyed 90 percent of the city, after which the remaining civilian residents were forced to depopulate the city just as winter was approaching and the Georgia countryside had been stripped of food by the federal army.

Oh and it doesn't stop there. The Unions policy of targeting civilians was wide spread. After the Confederate army had finally evacuated the Shenandoah Valley in the autumn of 1864 Sheridan's 35,000 infantry troops essentially burned the entire valley to the ground. As Sheridan described it in a letter to General Grant, in the first few days he "destroyed over 2200 barns . . . over 70 mills . . . have driven in front of the army over 4000 head of stock, and have killed . . . not less than 3000 sheep. . . . Tomorrow I will continue the destruction." In letters home Sheridan's troops described themselves as "barn burners" and "destroyers of homes." One soldier wrote home that he had personally set 60 private homes on fire and opined that "it was a hard looking sight to see the women and children turned out of doors at this season of the year." A Sergeant William T. Patterson wrote that "the whole country around is wrapped in flames, the heavens are aglow with the light thereof . . . such mourning, such lamentations, such crying and pleading for mercy [by defenseless women]... I never saw or want to see again."

As horrific as the burning of the Shenandoah Valley was, Grimsley concluded that it was actually "one of the more controlled acts of destruction during the war's final year." After it was all over Lincoln personally conveyed to Sheridan "the thanks of the Nation."

Sherman himself admitted after the war that he was taught at West Point that he could be hanged for the things he did. But in war the victors always write the history and are never punished for war crimes, no matter how heinous. Only the defeated suffer that fate.

Under Lincolns orders the union aggressors laid waste to civilians, civilian crops, civilian property, civilian industry and civilian livestock.


The only apologists I see are ones who try to explain away the war crimes of the north and Linconl

Criticizing Sherman does not put a black mark on Lincoln. Sherman did what needed to be done, but even permitted by Lincoln, it was all Will. And as has been pointed out, he hesitated. He really didn't want that to happen, he knew he had no choice if the war was going to end.

Just because you disagree with the man doesn't make him a bad president.

 

[privatehudson]

You're not a southerner, you're a Texan

Errr... Texas was a state in the Confederacy... I guess is some sort of American joke?

You mean like holding the city of Baltimore hostage with orders to open the battlements of Ft. McHennry on the city and its civilians if the elected congressional delegates dared to leave their illegal house arrest and vote ( you know voting what they were elected to do) for what their citizens of the state wanted.

I missed this earlier, but it may be worth noting that Southern states weren't exactly eager to let their citizens directly decide which side to take either, Only three of the states held referendums on the issue the rest decided by convention. On Maryland if the figures of people fighting for the respective causes is anything to go by Secession would hardly have been representative anyway as more than twice as many went North to serve the union as went south to serve the Confederacy.

I too would like to see some sources for the claims however.

 

[shortguy]

Errr... Texas was a state in the Confederacy... I guess is some sort of American joke?

Texas was independent before it was a state (and before it was a Confederate state), so they fancy that they're still somewhat independent, at least in character. In that much of Texas is, in terrain (and increasingly character), more like Mexico or the US Southwest than the rest of the South, I suppose there's some truth in it.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Ignoring all previous conversation:

He's not the "best," as in my opinion it's a three-way tie between him, Washington and FDR.

 

[privatehudson]

How many towns and cities did the south destroy completely?

To return to this point point I have come across one recently, chambersburg. The wiki page describes "a large proportion of the town was burned down under orders of Brig. Gen. John Mcausland for failing to provide a ransom of $500,000 in US currency, or $100,000 in gold"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chambersburg,_Pennsylvania#Civil_War_era

Obviously "a large proportion" is not "completely" but it was clearly a calculated and deliberate act.

 

[JohnRM]

Lincoln led the federal government in an effort to consolidate power and end the sovereignty of the states. In my opinion, this makes him a terrible president. Was he the worst president? That would be hard for me to quantify, but he would certainly be in the running.

Sic semper tyrannus!

 

[GuitarHero]

Lincon supressed sedition with jailing. That made all of his accomplishments less effective. I'd say he's somewhere between James Polk and Bill Clinton.

 

[Plotinus]

Not relevant to the OP, but on the subject of Sherman's march, here's an interesting and slightly different perspective:

[Sherman's] route on the March was east-south-east from Atlanta to Savannah, through the towns of Covington, Madison, Eatonton... the state capital, Milledgeville, Macon, Gordon, Sandersville, Louisville, Millen, and Ogeechee...

Where they did march, crops and bridges were often burned not by Union troops, but by resisting Confederates, who towards the end planted landmines in the roads. "This was not war, but murder," Sherman wrote later. His response was to put his Confederate prisoners at the front of the columns of marchers. News of this went ahead of them, and the laying of landmines stopped. Southern histories tend to demonise the march, claiming that Sherman devastated everywhere in his path, but when you visit these places you find that their own tourist literature boasts of how by their bravery and cunning, and by the sheer beauty of their particular township, they managed to stop Sherman burning anything much.

That's from Hand me my travellin' shoes: in search of Blind Willie McTell by Michael Gray (London: Bloomsbury 2007) pp. 62-63.

He also (p. 125) describes a small incident and the laconic description it got from the locals:

Statesborough was created in 1803, but was calling itself Statesboro by the time foragers from Sherman's army came through the nearby countryside on horseback in 1864. An officer in blue rode up to one man's gate, demanded how far it was to Statesboro, and was told he was in the heart of it. He looked around at a small wooden courthouse, two boarding houses, and a couple of liquor stores.

His men burnt down the courthouse, shot some chickens, hogs, and cattle, and left. The Court of Ordinary clerk wrote in the minutes book: "the Yankees was here and have burned the courthouse and there will be no court held today."

 

[joycem10]

The Best. What would History be like with a Independent Confederacy and a vengeful USA?

Ask Harry Turtledove, he wrote about 10 books on the subject.

 

[Dragonlord]

Ask Harry Turtledove, he wrote about 10 books on the subject.

Beat me to it...

I had a real belly-laugh when I followed skadistic's link he used as 'proof'.. ... it was immediately obvious it had to be alternate history ... 'Lincoln's War Trial' indeed..

OT, I've always thought of Lincoln as a great president. He made mistakes, but who in his situation wouldn't have? With the incredible snarl the US' politics were in at the time, no one could possibly have found a solution acceptable to all.

 

[Archbob]

but he is not my number 1 because he never got to go through with his reconstruction and other faults that privatehudson pointed out.

Do you think that anything to do with him getting shot?

 

[Red Door]

Lincoln led the federal government in an effort to consolidate power and end the sovereignty of the states. In my opinion, this makes him a terrible president. Was he the worst president? That would be hard for me to quantify, but he would certainly be in the running.

Sic semper tyrannus!

No, Lincoln responded to his territory being shot at.

 

[Vietcong]

every state has the right to declare independence!