THE CIVIL WAR: THE TRUE STORY BOOK 1

The Lincoln War Crimes Trial: A History Lesson

The Lincoln War Crimes Trial: A History Lesson

By Clyde Wilson on Sep 17, 2014

This essay originally appeared in Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture.

In the previous chapter we discussed the early stages of the North American War of Secession of 1861-63 as the minority Lincoln government attempted to suppress the legal secession of the Southern United States by military invasion. In this chapter we will discuss the conclusion of the war and some of its consequences.

In the spring of 1863 General R.E. Lee's Confederate army crossed the Potomac for the second time in the hope of relieving devastated areas of the Confederacy and bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

For several weeks he maneuvered freely in Pennsylvania without encountering United States forces, which were under strict orders to protect the Lincoln government in Washington. The Confederates observed the rules of civilized warfare, despite the systematic atrocities that had already been visited upon civilians in the South by the Lincoln forces. Pennsylvanians worked peacefully in their fields as the ragged but confident Confederates marched by.

About the first of July, Lee found the US forces entrenched at Gettysburg, a town in Southern Pennsylvania. Though having superior numbers, "Honest Abe's" armies were unable to initiate any forward movement. ("Honest Abe" was a name given to Lincoln by his early associates and later political enemies, for the same reason that the biggest boy in a class is called "Tiny.") Union morale was low. While there were many good men in the ranks who had volunteered to fight for the preservation of the American Union, there were also many unwilling conscripts and large numbers of foreigners who had been lured into the army by bounties and who were ignorant of the issues of the war and of American principles of liberty and self-government.

Among the better US soldiers there was much discontent over the recent illegal "Emancipation Proclamation," which in their view had changed the nature of the war, and over the dismissal of the popular General McClellan. Historians have often noted that, generally speaking, the best generals and soldiers in the "Union" armies were not supporters of the Republican Party or the Lincoln administration. Republicans and especially abolitionists tended to avoid military service in the war they had initiated.

After several days of probing attacks by Lee, the decisive breakthrough came on July 3, the eve of a day revered by lovers of liberty and self-government throughout the world. Pickett's fresh division and Pettigrew's seasoned veterans broke through the center of the Union line, its weakest point in terms of terrain. Military historians have noted the striking similarity between this attack and the French breaking of the Austrian center at the Battle of Solferino just four years before.

There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the ever-vigilant General Longstreet exploited the breakthrough and rolled up one wing of the union army. The other wing began retreating toward Washington to defend the government there. The noted Confederate cavalryman Stuart arrived at last and began to dog the retreat, which was made miserable by torrential rains and blistering heat.

Some US troops fought bravely, especially General Hancock, a Pennsylvanian, later President of the US, and Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine, later US ambassador to the Confederate States. But when the Democratic governors of New York and Illinois ordered their regiments to suspend fighting and return home, the remaining "Union" forces retreated to the inner defenses of the capital, ironically named for a great Virginian who was a relative of General Lee.

On Independence Day following the battle, former President Franklin Pierce addressed a cheering crowd at the capitol in Concord, New Hampshire. Pierce had never wavered in his support for the Constitution despite threats from the Lincoln government. The tide has turned, Pierce told the audience, and the Constitution and liberty of the Fathers would soon be restored in peace. (It should be pointed out that relatively new telegraph lines made communication almost instantaneous by 1863.)