Mr. Lincoln's War

Does the photograph on my cover art look familiar to you?


I would be very surprised if it did, having been taken back in July of 1913 at the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The old timer on the right fought for the South and his friend on the left fought for the North. And what did they fight for, and even risk their lives for?


The Southerner was assured that he fought to save his state from an invading Northern army. Thoughts of slavery and state’s rights never entered into his mind. He was there for two purposes alone, to serve and protect.


His Northern counterpart was given an assurance of his own. He was told that his sole purpose was to save the Union  and prevent its dissolution by Southern rebels. Any thought of the emancipation of Southern slaves never entered his mind ether. 


It was not until the aftermath of Gettysburg that Abe Lincoln had sufficient political courage to step forward and tell the Northern public that they had fought for the past three long and bloody years to free 4,000,000 Blacks in the South from human bondage.


Lincoln had assured Americans during the Election of 1860 that he was “not opposed to slavery in areas where it already existed, but would not permit it in the western territories.” When like most politicians, he changed his mind, the Northern public rioted in defiance to his rule and Union troops had to be transferred from the front in putting down a second rebellion.


This publication is neither about flags, particularly long forgotten artillery markers, nor state’s rights, nor slavery, nor white supremacy, nor even the infamous Ku Klux Klan. It is about the truth and nothing but the truth  as I know it, and the truth as millions of other born and bred Southerners know it.


Why do I entitle it Mr. Lincoln’s War? Because he first called it The Insurrection and when the Northern President couldn’t put it down, he renamed it The Civil War. The Border States called it The War Between the States and the South called it The War for Southern Independence, but I choose to simply call it Mr. Lincoln’s War.


Then came that recent and outrageous hate crime in Charleston. When the President stood and delivered his eulogy for the victims, he did something just as outrageous by his own accord. As his speech was beamed around the world, the President had the audacity to stand and equate our Confederate flag with racism and slavery.


To quote an old familiar Southern slang, his words were nothing more than horse hockey. I would have used the more familiar “____ ____” were that not to offend the gentle ladies of Charleston.


By his own misspoken rhetoric, he had turned Americans against Americans and ignited the flames of racial hatred more so than the shooter could ever have wished for.


He knows no more about the Confederate flag and its true meaning than he does about Plutonian geology. I was tempted to characterize his words as racist themselves. 


Upon second thought, I decided to take my pen in hand and tell America what I really think about this long suffering issue, should it pass a review by censors.


The music, Ashokan Farewell - Sullivan Ballou Letter, Dixie, A ll Quite On The Potomac, Marching Through Georgia, When Johnny Comes Marching Home and Shenandoah   were legally purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store for the express purpose of inclusion in this publication.