What Was The Most Absurd Civil War Claim?

rbortega

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May 4, 2013
What are some of the most absurd claims you have heard or read about the Civil War? This includes the war in general or a particular person or event associated with the conflict. It doesn't matter if you heard someone say it person or read it in a book or on the internet in some form (example: message board and comment section). A couple I have come across over the years include Abraham Lincoln supposedly secretly selling weapons to the Confederacy and Robert E. Lee being an Abolitionist.
 
The most absurd was that Ben Butler was a "Beast"
Oh please.
He did more for America in the whole than nearly anyone else and had he been good looking, less vindictive, better at PR, had a more reliable brother, didnt jump parties then he could have really been something special.
You are absolutely right.

Obviously Spoons Butler was a man of such high moral character that he had no idea what a woman of the street was.
:unsure:
 
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Jan 11, 1865

Here's the whole letter, courtesy of Dan Hawk.

It's worth remembering that the public debate over arming black troops had already been going on for a few months when he wrote this letter, so as the most prominent Confederate general, and one who would be leading these troops if they became a reality, Lee would have to take a side at some point. So it's not quite the desperation move that some here are saying, not on Lee's part anyway. Lee could not avoid taking a side on this military measure that was already being discussed.
 
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Things in 1865 are a lot different than in 1861. He basically saying the game is up and doing this is the only thing that may save our skin. Notice Lee also claims that if the Union wins slavery will be ended which is an admission that a Union war aim was emancipation.

"The game is up"... interesting wording. Lincoln said much the same thing when talking about why he adopted the Emancipation Proclamation.

"It had got to be," said he [Lincoln], "Mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game! I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy;​
 
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"The game is up"... interesting wording. Lincoln said much the same thing when talking about why he adopted the Emancipation Proclamation.

"It had got to be," said he [Lincoln], "Mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game! I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy;​


Not sure where your passage came from but the portion about playing the last card was made in a July 26, 1862 letter from Lincoln to Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson:

PRIVATE
Executive Mansion, Washington, July 26, 1862.

Hon Reverdy Johnson

My Dear Sir.
Yours of the 16th. by the hand of Governor Shepley is received. It seems the Union feeling in Louisiana is being crushed out by the course of General Phelps. Please pardon me for believing that is a false pretense. The people of Louisiana---all intelligent people every where---know full well, that I never had a wish to touch the foundations of their society, or any right of theirs. With perfect knowledge of this, they forced a necessity upon me to send armies among them, and it is their own fault, not mine, that they are annoyed by the presence of General Phelps. They also know the remedy---know how to be cured of General Phelps. Remove the necessity of his presence. And might it not be well for them to consider whether they have not already had time enough to do this? If they can conceive of anything worse than General Phelps, within my power, would they not better be looking out for it? They very well know the way to avert all this is simply to take their place in the Union upon the old terms. If they will not do this, should they not receive harder blows rather than lighter ones?

You are ready to say I apply to friends what is due only to enemies. I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends, who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me. This appeal of professed friends has paralyzed me more in this struggle than any other one thing. You remember telling me the day after the Baltimore mob in April 1861, that it would crush all Union feeling in Maryland for me to attempt bringing troops over Maryland soil to Washington. I brought the troops notwithstanding, and yet there was Union feeling enough left to elect a Legislature the next autumn which in turn elected a very excellent Union U. S. Senator!

I am a patient man---always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance. Still I must save this government if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.

Yours truly
A LINCOLN
 
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January 1865... the writing was already on the wall. It’s an attempt in a long line of attempts to portray the CSA as not fighting for slavery.
It would seem so as by January of 1865 the South had all but lost the war. Lee's proposal came far too late. There would have been no time to train slaves to fight for the promise of emancipation. The highly competent Patrick Cleburne had proposed this when it might have done the confederacy some good, but he was not only ignored by appalled southerners, but lost any promotion opportunity to far less competent officers. I see this as another example of how important slavery was to the Confederacy.
 
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It's worth remembering that the public debate over arming black troops had already been going on for a few months when he wrote this letter, so as the most prominent Confederate general, and one who would be leading these troops if they became a reality, Lee would have to take a side at some point. So it's not quite the desperation move that some here are saying, not on Lee's part anyway. Lee could not avoid taking a side on this military measure that was already being discussed.
I would disagree. By 1865, Lee knew the situation was desperate.
 
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Not sure where your passage came from but the portion about playing the last card was made in a July 26, 1862 letter from Lincoln to Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson:

It was published in the New York Times and attributed to F. B. Carpenter, who said Lincoln told him the story.


Mr. F.B. CARPENTER, the well-known artist, contributes to the Independent this week a sketch of the history of the Emancipation Proclamation, as given to him by Mr. LINCOLN himself, while he was painting the picture illustrative of its consideration by the Cabinet. Mr. CARPENTER quotes a passage from Mr. LINCOLN's letter to Col. HODGES, of Kentucky, and says:​
I now take up the history of the proclamation itself, as Mr. LINCOLN gave it to me, on the occasion of our first interview, as written down by myself soon afterward:
"It had got to be," said he, "Mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game! I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy; and, without consultation with, or the knowledge of the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the Proclamation, and after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject.​
 
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It was published in the New York Times and attributed to F. B. Carpenter, who said Lincoln told him the story.


Mr. F.B. CARPENTER, the well-known artist, contributes to the Independent this week a sketch of the history of the Emancipation Proclamation, as given to him by Mr. LINCOLN himself, while he was painting the picture illustrative of its consideration by the Cabinet. Mr. CARPENTER quotes a passage from Mr. LINCOLN's letter to Col. HODGES, of Kentucky, and says:​
I now take up the history of the proclamation itself, as Mr. LINCOLN gave it to me, on the occasion of our first interview, as written down by myself soon afterward:
"It had got to be," said he, "Mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game! I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy; and, without consultation with, or the knowledge of the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the Proclamation, and after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject.​
Ok thanks. It falls near the same timeline as his July 26th letter to Reverdy Johnson where Lincoln referred to "leaving any available card unplayed." His cabinet was called to a special meeting and they thought that Lincoln was announcing an enabling proclamation that was required by a clause in the recently passed Second Confiscation Act. The cabinet was confused as to why they would have to be present for this. After reading the mundane proclamation, the cabinet thought he was finished and that was the end of the meeting when Lincoln let it be known that he had one more page to read. Lincoln continued "And as a fit and necessary military measure for effecting this object, I, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do order and declare that on the first day of January in the year of Our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and sixtythree, all persons held as slaves within any state or states, wherein the constitutional authority of the United States shall not then be practically recognized, submitted to, and maintained, shall then, thenceforward, and forever, be free."

The 3 paragraphs that Lincoln had read to the cabinet at that meeting would be the rough draft of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he would tweak during the following days and weeks that would announce the elimination of slavery as a Union goal with the issuance of the final draft on September 22, 1862.
 
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Another absurd attitude that I read all the time on this forum is that unfair tariffs were "one" of the main reasons why the south was so eager to bug out in 1860, but they never provide any economic data to prove their statements, they just provide rhetoric as their source of evidence, and that is absurd.

But here's what is really absurd: they use pre-1832 economic data and apply it to 1860, which they omit 1832-1859 and correlate 1828-32 to 1860. LOL. What a lovely innumerate chronicle that somehow erases three decades in the 19th century in attempt make a argument plausible, which I suppose it would actually be plausible if Rip Van Winkle were the author.

It is absurd to apply economic data from 1828-1832 as your economic evidence for 1860. Nobody can show any economic data(charts, graphs, quantitative analysis) that tariffs were an economic strain on the south from 1832-1860, so they use pre-1832 rhetoric and apply it to 1860 by reaffirming rhetoric. I don't know...is it innumeracy? Is it chicanery? Is it a combination of both? Whatever the case maybe, it is surely absurd.
 
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It was desperation, as he increasingly knew that defeat was imminent. At the beginning of the letter, he states that his preference would be to leave slavery intact if possible, which would suggest that his new-found "abolitionist" feelings were forced by the circumstances:

"Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both."​
"It was desperation"
So was the emancipation proclamation

"Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both."

Similar statements were made by such as Abraham Lincoln & General Sherman
 
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"It was desperation"
So was the emancipation proclamation

"Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both."

Similar statements were made by such as Abraham Lincoln & General Sherman
Lincoln was always anti-slavery. I can't comment on Sherman's slavery views, but at least he didn't betray his oath and his country to fight for slavery.
 
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I think this is a fine topic, but it certainly does bring out a certain dead horse for a fresh beating.

What are some of the most absurd claims you have heard or read about the Civil War?

Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of John C. Calhoun.

Various quotes falsely attributed to Lincoln.

Claims that John Wilkes Booth didn't die in that burning barn in 1865, but lived the rest of his life quietly under an assumed name. No way does a raging narcissist like Booth live quietly.

Several modern claims about Lee's strategy at Gettysburg on Day 3.

The Monitor and Merrimack were invulnerable due to their armour. There were shipboard cannons of the era that could do serious damage to both, not to mention heavy seacoast artillery, but said weaponry were simply wasn't present at either day of the Hampton Roads battle.

While the average CW shooter couldn't have made those shots, it wasn't/isn't impossible. Plenty of folks couldn't make a 1,000 yard shot today, with modern equipment. Yet, I have a son who has made a shot over a mile.

I think modern equipment is key. The high muzzle velocity and modern manufacturing makes it far more feasible to make long range rifle shots than the low velocity muzzleloaders of the 1860s. Maybe the Sharps or some similar rifle had better capabilities?
 
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There's a story in the diary of HN Connor, of Spaight's Texas Battalion, about the burning of the Federal gunboat Dan at Sabine Pass. Dan was a merchant steamer built by Daniel Goos of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Acting Master Frederick Crocker, USN, captured Dan in 1862 and sailed her out of the Calcasieu. She was armed with a 30-pounder Parrott and took up station near the Sabine Pass lighthouse. Connor wrote that on the foggy night of January 8, 1863, he and several other cavalrymen rowed out to Dan, with pine-knot torches in a kettle, and set her ablaze.

This is absurd because there's zero mention of it anywhere outside Connor's diary. No mention of the loss of a steamer, its armament, its crew, or control of Sabine Pass. No mention of the incident from either side in the OR. Starved as Texans were at that time of good news (Galveston had only just been recaptured), it would undoubtedly have provided immense propaganda value for the CS. It's also absurd because assuming the Confederates could even find the gunboat in the fog, it doesn't make sense that pine-knot torches could have sat long enough on the decks to set the whole boat aflame without someone from the crew noticing.
 
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"It was desperation"
So was the emancipation proclamation

"Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both."

Similar statements were made by such as Abraham Lincoln & General Sherman
The Emancipation Proclamation was a useful tool towards victory. It was decided upon 2 months before it was announced, nearly six months before it was promulgated. That delay doesn't suggest "desperation."
 
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