The Dark Side Of Abraham Lincoln

[Mike]

Not really. There were 4-5 candidates on the election ballot. Lincoln was on no ballot in the south.

 

[Mike]

In "Citizen Sherman" Michael Fellman describes how Sherman's chief engineer, Captain O.M. Poe, advised that the bombing of Atlanta was of no military significance (the Confederates had already abandoned the city) and implored Sherman to stop the bombardment after viewing the carcasses of dead women and children in the streets. Sherman coldly told him the dead bodies were "a beautiful sight" and commenced the destruction of 90 percent of all the buildings in Atlanta. After that, the remaining 2,000 residents were evicted from their homes just as winter was approaching.
On September 12, 1864, General John B Hood wrote a letter to General Sherman condemning him for his wanton shelling of Atlanta:
"There are a hundred thousand witnesses that you fired into the habitations of women and children for weeks, firing far above and miles beyond my line of defense. I have too good an opinion, founded both upon observation and experience, of the skill of your artillerists, to credit the insinuation that they for several weeks unintentionally fired too high for my modest field-works, and slaughtered women and children by accident and want of skill."
Travis [><]
Source: Memoirs of Gen: W. T. Sherman, by William Tecumseh Sherman, James Gillespie Blaine, page, 122, 1891

Sherman's acts against civilians in the South were with the full blessing of Lincoln. He was taking heat to end the war......

 

[TexasBred]

In "Citizen Sherman" Michael Fellman describes how Sherman's chief engineer, Captain O.M. Poe, advised that the bombing of Atlanta was of no military significance (the Confederates had already abandoned the city) and implored Sherman to stop the bombardment after viewing the carcasses of dead women and children in the streets. Sherman coldly told him the dead bodies were "a beautiful sight" and commenced the destruction of 90 percent of all the buildings in Atlanta. After that, the remaining 2,000 residents were evicted from their homes just as winter was approaching.
On September 12, 1864, General John B Hood wrote a letter to General Sherman condemning him for his wanton shelling of Atlanta:
"There are a hundred thousand witnesses that you fired into the habitations of women and children for weeks, firing far above and miles beyond my line of defense. I have too good an opinion, founded both upon observation and experience, of the skill of your artillerists, to credit the insinuation that they for several weeks unintentionally fired too high for my modest field-works, and slaughtered women and children by accident and want of skill."
Travis [><]
Source: Memoirs of Gen: W. T. Sherman, by William Tecumseh Sherman, James Gillespie Blaine, page, 122, 1891

Sherman's acts against civilians in the South were with the full blessing of Lincoln. He was taking heat to end the war......

Sherman did as any good general will do....leave nothing behind that may benefit the enemy.

Was is hell....atrocities were committed by both sides:

http://listverse.com/2013/03/17/10-war-crimes-of-the-us-civil-war/

 

[TexasBred]

Heritage is often defined as something inherited due to the place, time, or circumstances of someone's birth. Heritage is not unlike culture which includes the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular group transmitted from one generation to another. Both terms, heritage and culture, have been thrown around a lot recently by Americans living in the former Confederacy to defend their sick twisted clinging to a flag symbolizing white supremacy and treason against the United States of America.
Southerners are quick to claim that the Confederate flag, no matter which version, has nothing whatsoever to do with either white supremacy (racism) or treason. In their estimation they know is a lie, the Confederate flag(s) are just a symbol of Southern heritage and culture. However, that was never what the flag symbolized and there is no better reference to what the flag stands for than the words of the treasonous racist who designed it.
The white supremacist who designed the Confederacy's flag(s), one William T. Thompson, gave the definitive reason why every Republican, KKK member, and so-called Southern heritage advocate still supports flying that symbol of treason and racism. Thompson was proud to admit that "As a people we are fighting to maintain the heavenly ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause. Such a flag would be a suitable emblem of our young confederacy, and sustained by the brave hearts and strong arms of the south, it would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN'S FLAG."
Many Americans of all races today refer to any of the Confederacy's flags as "the white supremacist's flag" and they would not have been wrong during the Civil War and they are certainly not wrong in the 21st Century. When the racist flag's defenders claim it is just an innocent symbol of their Southern heritage and culture, they are defending the white supremacy they know the flag symbolized during the Civil War continuing to the present. It is part of the Southern culture, and their beloved heritage, they have learned all their lives and likely studied in history classes.
For example, in what is known as the Cornerstone Address, Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens railed against, and harshly condemned, the nation's Declaration of Independence from England. He also believed, like evangelicals since the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, that the Founding Fathers' assertion that "all men are created equal" is wrong and a lie.
Stephens said, "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." That flag, no matter which version, is antithetical to the ideals on which America was founded and it is a fact that every resident of the South is very well aware and it is why they revere the racist symbol like it is their god.
The KKK certainly understands what the Confederacy's flag represents; the South's white supremacist heritage.  It is why shortly after calls for the racist symbol's removal from South Carolina government buildings and grounds, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan's Pelham, North Carolina chapter reserved the Statehouse Grounds in South Carolina for a rally next month. James Spears, the Great Titan of the chapter, said the group would be rallying to protest "the Confederate flag being took (sic) down for all the wrong reasons. It's part of white people's culture." It is important to note that "Great Titan" Spears did not say the flag was part of the South's heritage, or to honor treasonous Confederate war dead, but that it is Southern "white people's" culture; a culture founded in white supremacy and racial animus toward African Americans.
In fact, the KKK Pelham chapter just changed its home page to demonstrate its vehement opposition to the white supremacist flag's removal with the heading "Say No To Cultural Genocide," and that "most white people are to [sic] cowardly to stand up for their heritage." One hopes that most 'white' people in America do not consider racism and white supremacist ideology any part of "their heritage," but that hope is waning with more news that across the Confederacy African American churches are being set ablaze like it is still the Civil Rights era.
Since Confederate hero Dylann Roof gunned down nine innocent African Americans for being free African Americans in the former Confederacy, there have been a string of arson attacks on other black churches in the South. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported last week that (at the time) "at least" six predominately Black churches in four Southern states were heavily damaged or destroyed by fire in less than a week's time. Interestingly, although federal, state, and local law enforcement officials readily admitted that  most of the fires were set by arsonists, they are remiss to call them hate crimes committed by Confederate white supremacists. It is likely to avoid antagonizing racist Dylann Roof types who still cling to the belief that burning African American churches, like gunning down nine African Americans at a church bible study, is the Confederate way of "saying no to cultural genocide." It is apparently the work of Southern white people who are not too cowardly to "stand up for their heritage," or defend a flag designed to symbolize white superiority.
The white superiority mindset never died in the South, and the KKK has spent over a hundred years not only keeping it alive and well, but has worked tirelessly behind the scenes propagating the idea that the white supremacy is the natural order. In 1915 the Ku Klux Klan employed a wildly popular film, the Birth of a Nation, for recruitment purposes and to promote its white supremacist vision according to historian Nancy MacLean's 1994 book, Behind the Mask of Chivalry.
MacLean wrote; "In this racist epic of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the restoration of white rule, (film maker) Griffith harnessed all the emotive power of modern film-making to convince viewers that black men were beasts and white vigilantes were the saviors of American civilization. Given the right to vote and hold office, the film averred, African-American men dragged society into chaos; worse, they used such power to stalk white women. In the final, climactic scene, the hooded and robed members of the Ku Klux Klan rode in to save the film's young white heroine by castrating and lynching her black would-be assailant. Their act gave birth to a reunited America." That reunited America is where the country stands today and it is abominable.
Based on Confederate mass murderer Dylann Roof's comments before slaughtering nine African Americans in their church, racism and chivalry is still an essential part of the South's heritage and culture of white supremacy; not much has changed. The sad fact is that not only has little changed in the "culture and heritage" of the former Confederacy where predominately Black churches are still being burned, and African Americans are gunned down during a bible study, the Ku Klux Klan is still promoting a culture and heritage of white supremacy and defending a symbol that many Americans still believe ardently is a "part of white people's culture." The tragedy is that the Klan is right and according to a white supremacist Dylann Roof was encouraged by, the Charleston massacre is "just a preview of coming attractions."

 

[Mike]

Quote by Abe himself:

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, 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.

 

[Mike]

"We are in our enemy's country and I act accordingly. The
North may fall into bankruptcy and anarchy first, but ...
the war will soon assume a turn to extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people."
HOME LETTERS OF GENERAL SHERMAN
Compiled and Edited by M.A. DeWolf Howe
1909

 

[Mike]

It is a sad fact of war that collateral damage is part and parcel of the upheaval. What happened in the South during Lincoln's illegal invasion and subsequent war was not "collateral damage". It was intentional, methodical, orchestrated and organized destruction of the Southern civilian population. Defenseless women, innocent children, and unarmed old men.......

"Let us destroy Atlanta and make it a desolation. One thing is certain, whether we get inside Atlanta or not, it will be a used up community by the time we are done with it." General W. T. Sherman (Official Records, ser 1 Vol 38, pt 5, 409, 452.)

 

[Mike]

The truth is, after their war with the South, they went after the American Indians, beginning with the Sioux. War against innocent civilians went so well in the South, Sherman decided to punish innocent Sioux women and children, yet again, using his famous "extermination" plan. Observe from him to Grant:

"Just arrived in time to attend the funeral of my Adjt Gen'l Sawyer—I have given general instructions to Gen'l
Cooke about the Sioux—I do not yet understand how the massacre of Col Fettermans party could have been so complete—We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux even to their extermination, men women & children...". (Telegram from December 28, 1866 to Grant)
THE PAPERS OF ULYSSES S GRANT
VOLUME 16
1866

 

[Mike]

LINCOLN THE DICTATOR…
George Edmond's first-person account captures many Northern sources that support the Southern position and reveal the lies behind the Yankee myth of history. In his works, the author points out, "Imperialists always look on the people as sheep, to be deceived and driven." Remember, folks…. a people who are kept in ignorance of their past will offer no serious resistance to tyranny in the present and future.
The following passage from his book speaks of the true nature and agenda of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party:
"Not until after Lincoln and Seward held in their grip all the machinery of Government, and felt certain they could carry out their purpose of conquering the South, did the Republican Party begin to use the words: Rebel! Rebellion! Traitor! Treason! The great numbers of the North's people who opposed the war suddenly became traitors; any and every word of opposition became treason; arbitrary arrests and imprisonments began, and a pall of blackest despotism spread over the land." by George Edmunds.
Travis [><]
Source: "Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South," by George Edmunds, 1904.
Link to free e-book: .https://archive.org/details/factsfalsehoodsc00edmo

 

[TexasBred]

LINCOLN THE DICTATOR…
George Edmond's first-person account captures many Northern sources that support the Southern position and reveal the lies behind the Yankee myth of history. In his works, the author points out, "Imperialists always look on the people as sheep, to be deceived and driven." Remember, folks…. a people who are kept in ignorance of their past will offer no serious resistance to tyranny in the present and future.
The following passage from his book speaks of the true nature and agenda of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party:
"Not until after Lincoln and Seward held in their grip all the machinery of Government, and felt certain they could carry out their purpose of conquering the South, did the Republican Party begin to use the words: Rebel! Rebellion! Traitor! Treason! The great numbers of the North's people who opposed the war suddenly became traitors; any and every word of opposition became treason; arbitrary arrests and imprisonments began, and a pall of blackest despotism spread over the land." by George Edmunds.
Travis [><]
Source: "Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South," by George Edmunds, 1904.
Link to free e-book: .https://archive.org/details/factsfalsehoodsc00edmo

Get over it man. The south lost. Apparently you've never served one day in the military because you understand so little about war and the tactics and strategies of battle. The sad thing is that the south was sitting on another million to 1.5 million potential soldiers in the form of male slaves which could have helped you win this war but you were afraid of them. Afraid to give them a gun and also afraid that you might lose your slaves which you eventually did anyway. Imagine having that many soldiers to fill in the gap and not have to fill it with conscripted 12-13 year old "white boys" who had no idea how to fight or why they were fighting. All the while the North had almost a quarter million blacks in uniform fighting against you, almost all of whom were slaves which had been emancipated.

 

[Brad S]

I'm pretty sure mike didn't participate in the war against southern sovereignty. Trying to hold historical accounts to truthful constraints may be a fool's errand, but certainly the erosion of constitutional guarantees of liberty that Lincoln initiated have swelled to cost us all. The 10th amendment was brilliant, and without its observation, we're as divided as ever. Everyone is the loser when liberties are eroded, not just the south.

 

[Mike]

Blacks Who Fought For the South

Most historical accounts portray Southern blacks as anxiously awaiting President Abraham Lincoln's "liberty-dispensing troops" marching south in the War Between the States. But there's more to the story; let's look at it.
Black Confederate military units, both as freemen and slaves, fought federal troops. Louisiana free blacks gave their reason for fighting in a letter written to New Orleans' Daily Delta: "The free colored population love their home, their property, their own slaves and recognize no other country than Louisiana, and are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for Abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana. They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought in 1814-15." As to bravery, one black scolded the commanding general of the state militia, saying, "Pardon me, general, but the only cowardly blood we have got in our veins is the white blood."
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest had slaves and freemen serving in units under his command. After the war, Forrest said of the black men who served under him, "These boys stayed with me.. - and better Confederates did not live." Articles in "Black Southerners in Gray," edited by Richard Rollins, gives numerous accounts of blacks serving as fighting men or servants in every battle from Gettysburg to Vicksburg.
Professor Ed Smith, director of American Studies at American University, says Stonewall Jackson had 3,000 fully equipped black troops scattered throughout his corps at Antietam - the war's bloodiest battle. Mr. Smith calculates that between 60,000 and 93,000 blacks served the Confederacy in some capacity. They fought for the same reason they fought in previous wars and wars afterward: "to position themselves. They had to prove they were patriots in the hope the future would be better ... they hoped to be rewarded."
Many knew Lincoln had little love for enslaved blacks and didn't wage war against the South for their benefit. Lincoln made that plain, saying, "I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ... I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." The very words of his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation revealed his deceit and cunning; it freed those slaves held "within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." It didn't apply to slaves in West Virginia and areas and states not in rebellion. Like Gen. Ulysses Grant's slaves, they had to wait for the 13th Amendment, Grant explained why he didn't free his slaves earlier, saying, "Good help is so hard to come by these days."
Lincoln waged war to "preserve the Union". The 1783 peace agreement with England (Treaty of Paris] left 13 sovereign nations. They came together in 1787, as principals, to create a federal government, as their agent, giving it specific delegated authority -specified in our Constitution. Principals always retain the right to fire their agent. The South acted on that right when it seceded. Its firing on Fort Sumter, federal property, gave Lincoln the pretext needed for the war.
The War Between the States, through force of arms, settled the question of secession, enabling the federal government to run roughshod over states' rights specified by the Constitution's 10th Amendment.

 

[Mike]

"Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen the results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox, with my brave men, my sword in my right hand."
Robert E Lee
Speaking to Governor Fletcher S Stockdale of Texas, in September of 1870.

 

[TexasBred]

"Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen the results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox, with my brave men, my sword in my right hand."
Robert E Lee
Speaking to Governor Fletcher S Stockdale of Texas, in September of 1870.

Good try Mike but Lee never said this.

He did however say this:

I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honour for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual Union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession: anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and all the other patriots of the Revolution. … Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense will draw my sword on none.

 

[Mike]

Charles Dickens wrote, "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern States." He went on to say..."..so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils... The
quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal
quarrel."

 

[TexasBred]

Charles Dickens wrote, "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern States." He went on to say..."..so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils... The
quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal
quarrel."

Is that the best you can do Mike....quote a British novelist. Some expert we have there.

At the time of the Civil War, there were six democracies in the face of the planet. Today, there's 120 and they've been inspired by the American exceptionalism. Robert Kennedy, Jr.

 

[Mike]

Charles Dickens wrote, "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern States." He went on to say..."..so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils... The
quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal
quarrel."

Is that the best you can do Mike....quote a British novelist. Some expert we have there.

At the time of the Civil War, there were six democracies in the face of the planet. Today, there's 120 and they've been inspired by the American exceptionalism. Robert Kennedy, Jr.

If you don't know the importance of the British in the War of Northern Aggression and the popularity of Dickens at the time, your history is seriously deficit. But your ignorance has already been established.

 

[TexasBred]

If you don't know the importance of the British in the War of Northern Aggression and the popularity of Dickens at the time, your history is seriously deficit. But your ignorance has already been established.

My "so-called" ignorance can be remedied......your stupidity unfortunately is terminal !!!!!!!!!

"The time has come when men may speak freely, kindly, and truly of the past. The War Between the States with its sacrifices has ceased, and peace between the sections with its ennobling, refining and uplifting influences has come to abide forever.

They who would stay its marches and delay its reign are the enemies of the nation's happiness."

- Bennett H. Young
Lieutenant,
Confederate States Army as a lieutenant, Young entered Vermont from Canada in 1864 and occupied the town of St. Albans in a historic raid

 

[backhoeboogie]

Mike I don't know how many diaries you have read from common people back in the day, but the diary reading was more revealing for me. People who lived thru the war's devastation, then endured reconstruction and carpet bagger lies told their stories. Even tho the war was over, in all reality it persisted. It created a lot of outlaws such as Wes Hardin. It fueled the Taylor Sutton feud. Common people were honored to harbor fugitives of justice.

Of course you read day after day or chopping silage. They had milk cows, horses, pigs and chickens which rendered them chopping winter's feed every day in the spring/summer to feed stock. It had to be dried then tied and stored. Interesting somewhat but it went on year after year after year. Some people starved. The north had no sympathy for starving children. Mexicans actually rendered aid to Texans and it hadn't been that long since they had been at war with Texas.

History books simply don't address the life people had to live.

 

[TexasBred]

Boogie what are the names of hte books that contain those diaries. I'd love to read some of them. Gotta be very interesting.