George Edmonds - Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South, 1861-1865

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Text originally published in 1904 under the same title.

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FACTS AND FALSEHOODS

CONCERNING THE WAR ON THE SOUTH 1861-1865

by

GEORGE EDMONDS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

This little work is offered. It does not aspire to the dignity of History. It is mostly a collection of facts under one cover, which I trust will prove of use to the future historians of the South. Perhaps the fittest title to this work would be A Protest Against Injusticethe injustice of misrepresentationof false chargesof lies. The feeling of injustice certainly inspired the idea of this work. The greater number of the facts herein laid before the reader were not drawn from Southern or Democratic sources, but from high Republican authorities. Part first of this work presents Abraham Lincoln to the people of this generation as his contemporaries saw and knew him. The characteristics portrayed will be a revelation to many readers. As an offset to the falsity of Republican histories of the war of the 60s, permit me to express the hope that in the near future our people will make more general use of those histories which are truthful and just to the South. For instance, the English historian, Percy Greggs large history of the United States, might be condensed, or rather that part giving the story of the 60s could be detached, and published in one small, cheap volume, so that every family in the South can own a copy. John A. Marshalls large volume, American Bastiles, can be used in every Southern school to rouse in the hearts of boys and girls hatred of Despotism. S. D. Carpenters Logic of History, and Matthew Careys Democratic Handbook should not be allowed to go out of print. Both of these books contain much that will be of great value to the future historian.

You may fool all the people part of the time,

You may fool some of the people all the time,

But you cant fool all the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln.

* * * * *

All lies have sentence of death written against them in Heavens Chancery itself, and slowly or fast, advance incessantly toward their hour.Carlyle.

* * * * *

I sing the hymn of the Conquered who fell in the battle of life,

The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife;

Not the jubilant song of the Victors for whom the resounding acclaim

Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame.

While the voice of the world shouts its chorus, its paean for those who have won,

While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze and the sun,

Gay banners are waving, hands clapping and hurrying feet

Throwing after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the field of Defeat.

Speak History! Who are Lifes victors? Unroll thy long annals and say,

Are they those whom the world called the victors, who won the success of a day?

The Martyrs or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylaes tryst

Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? Pilate or Christ?

W. W. STORY.

Blackwoods Magazine, 1881.

The following are cited as some of the authorities for the matters stated in the pages of this little book and here summarized for brevity:

1.The Olive Branch, by Carey, Boston, 1814.

2.The Pelham Papers, published 1796, in the Connecticut Courant, Hartford.

3.The Logic of HistoryS. D. Carpenter, 1864, Editor Wisconsin Patriot.

4.History of the United StatesJohn Clark Ridpath, 1880.

5.Notes on History of Slavery in MassachusettsGeorge H. Moore, 1866.

6.History of the Negro Race in America, 1883George W. Williams, first colored member of the Ohio Legislature, and late Judge Advocate of the Grand Army of the Republic of Ohio.

7.Abraham LincolnNorman Hapgood, 1899.

8.Abraham LincolnJ. G. Holland, 1865, Editor Scribner.

9.Abraham LincolnIda Tarbell.

10.American ConflictBy Horace Greeley, Editor New York Tribune.

11.Life of LincolnJohn T. Morse, 1892.

12.Life of O. P. Morton, Governor of Indiana, William Dudley Foulk, 1899.

13.History of the United StatesBenjamin E. Andrews, 1894, President Brown University.

14.Life of Hannibal Hamlin.

15.The Story of the Civil WarJohn Codman Ropes, 1894.

16.Disunion and ReunionWoodrow Wilson, 1893, Professor in Princeton University, New Jersey.

{1} 17.The Real LincolnCharles L. C. Minor, 1901.

18.Lincoln and Men of the War TimeA. K. McClure, 1892.

19.Our Presidents and How We Make ThemA. K. McClure, 1900.

20.Life of LincolnNicolay and Hay, 1890.

{2} 21.American BastilesJohn A. Marshall, 1882.

22.History of the United StatesJames Ford Rhodes, 1893.

23.My Diary, North and SouthWilliam Howard Russell, published originally in the London Times during the War.

24.Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 1885.

25.The Great ConspiracyGeneral John A. Logan.

26.Men Who Saved the UnionGeneral Don Piatt, 1887.

27.Butlers BookGeneral B. F. Butler (Beast Butler), 1892.

28.Executive PowerBenjamin R. Curtis, Judge United States Supreme Court.

29.Lalors EncyclopediaEdited by John J. Lalor, 1881.

30.William H. SewardFrederick Bancroft, 1900.

31.True Story of a Great LifeWilliam H. Herndon and Jesse William Weik, 1889.

{3} 32.Democratic Speakers HandbookMatthew Carey, Jr., 1868.

33.Life of Abraham LincolnJoseph Barrett and Charles W. Brown, 1902.

34.Nullification and Secession in the United States.E. P. Powell, 1897.

35.Suppressed Life of Abraham Lincoln, by William H. Herndon, published soon after Lincolns death.

36.Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Ward H. Lamon, 1872.

37.Story of the Great MarchGeorge W. Nichols, Aide-de-camp to General Sherman, 1865.

{4} 38.Southern Historical Papers.

The above sentence from one of the ablest Republican newspapers in the country is perhaps a little terser and stronger than the usual statement regarding the position Republicans are determined Lincoln shall hold in the minds of men, but truly represents the reverential attitude which is held toward Lincoln, not only by Republicans, but by men of all political parties. He has entered the realm of apotheosisto criticise him unfavorably is resented by Republicans as sacrilegious, and of every hundred, ninety and nine either believe that Lincoln is the demi-god he is said to be, or they pretend to believe it, and go their way, thus giving their sanction to the apotheosis referred to by the Globe-Democrat . Even in the South the real Lincoln is lost sight of in the rush and bustle of our modern life, and many Southerners accept the opinion of Lincoln that is furnished them ready made by writers who are either ignorant, or else who purposely falsify plain facts of history. To such extent has this proneness to accept fiction for fact gone, this proneness to take ready-made opinions iron others, that even in Mississippi the proposition has been seriously made to place a portrait of Lincoln in the halls of the State Capitol. No doubt the Mississippi legislator who proposed the Lincoln portrait flatters himself that he was displaying a broad and liberal spirit; ignorant of the facts, he believed Lincoln was a man of pure and lofty spirit, a patriot moved by a noble impulse to serve and save his country, therefore worthy of Southern as well as Northern admiration. Certainly no right thinking man would erect a statue or put a portrait in their legislative hall of a self-seeking, cunning, coarse-minded politician, a man scorned by his own official family and by the most powerful and prominent of his Republican contemporaries. Amid the universal din of praise that it has become the fashion to sing of Lincoln, only the student remembers the real facts, only the student knows not only that the Lincoln of the popular imagination of today bears little or no resemblance to the real Lincoln, but that the deification of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the members of his own party, by men who but a few short hours before Booths bullet did its deadly work at Fords theater, were reviling him as a buffoon, a coarse, vulgar jester. History affords no stranger spectacle than this, that today, nearly forty years after his death, the American people, North and South, have come to regard almost as a god a man who, when living, and up to the very hour of his death, was looked upon with contempt by nearly every man of his own party who intimately knew him, even by members of his Cabinet, by Senators, Congressmen, preachers and plain citizens. The unthinking, who do not care to correct mistaken views of historical characters, may as well throw this book aside, but those who prefer Facts to Falsehoods will, the author believes, feel repaid by reading on to the end. Nearly every statement will be substantiated by high Republican authority, the great part made by the closest friends of Mr. Lincoln, men who cannot be deemed prejudiced against him. In another issue, the Globe - Democrat says: