Lincoln's Washington D.C.

This Blogger, on his hadj to Washington D.C., made  a special effort to pay renewed homage to Abraham Lincoln. In reality, the American Civil War, the American Iliad, is about two men: Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.

If Lincoln had not been elected President of the United States, the South would not have seceded, ergo no Civil War.  If Lee had taken Lincoln’s offer to command the Federal Armies at the beginning of the war, the war would probably have ended in 90 days.

The war was so bloody; the war was such a bloodletting, because Lee went with his state, Virginia, against the Union. He was not the only one; Virginia supplied more troops to the Confederacy than any other rebel state. The war lasted four long years only because of Lee and his killing genius; “Forty-five percent of all Union casualties—including 56.4 percent of all Union troops wounded and 36.4 percent of all Union troops killed in action—fell at the hands of Lee's army.”

Lee and Lee alone gave the Confederacy a chance to win the Civil War; his Army of Northern Virginia fought, without hope and without fear, until the end. In the seven weeks of the Wilderness Campaign, with all thought of a Confederate victory expired, Lee’s Rebs inflicted 60,000 casualties on Grant’s troops.

There is forensic evidence to make the case that it was the Almighty who defeated Lee. He lost his greatest general, Stonewall Jackson, when Jackson was accidentally killed by his own men; Lee lost his favorite war horse, James Longstreet, during a critical portion of the war when Longstreet was gravely wounded, accidentally, by his own men.

Two great Reb generals cut down by their own men, by mistake; that cannot be random, only divine.

“One woman lamented, after the army's surrender on April 9, 1865, that "we have depended too much on Gen Lee[,] too little on God, & I believe God has suffered his surrender to show us we can use other means than Gen Lee to affect his ends.”

The Confederacy, Lee, would have won the war if not for Lincoln. Lincoln was a great war lord, expunging generals who could not win(take that LBJ) until he developed a command corps equal to the Macedonians of Alexander or the Grandees of Cromwell: Sherman, Sheridan, Grant, Thomas, Custer,Chamberlain,  and Hancock the Superb.

Tolstoy called Lincoln “CHRIST IN MINIATURE.”

The Lincoln Memorial confirms that Tolstoy insight; it is an American Pieta, stunning in its secular religiosity. It is open twenty four hours a day, without a fee. At night, it is illuminated and spiritual beyond belief.

It  is both humbling and inspiring to see patriotism in its purest form, like watching the birth of a star. Veterans, some old, some maimed, some mangled, some being helped up the marble steps. There they stand in front of the Great Emancipator; tears flood their eyes as they appreciate the immeasurable national suffering he represents and exemplifies.

Lincoln’s Calvary is in Washington D.C.; that is also free, but you must wait in line.

At the end of a museum tour, one is escorted into the hallowed ground of Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated by the celebrity actor, John Wilkes Booth.

The theater opened in 1863, and could fit 2500 people in its environs; people were smaller in 1863, and they were piled in, using folding chairs. It was 75% full the night Lincoln was shot.

Lincoln liked the theater.

He would mosey on over from the White House, unannounced, to see a play from a booth hidden from the audience.

With the Civil War finally won, Lincoln wanted to see the comedy, OUR AMERICAN COUSIN.

In the morning of Good Friday( CHRIST IN MINIATURE) The White House sent word the President would be attending.

The owners of the theater printed flyers telling the D.C. populace that Lincoln would be attending that evening’s performance.

That is how John Wilkes Booth knew Lincoln would be there, at a certain time.

Booth had decided to kill the president when he heard a speech in which Lincoln recommended, envisioned that black Union troops, veterans would have the franchise, the right to vote.

Booth had performed at the theater before; he knew that the Presidential box over hung stage left. In prior performances he had leaped from that box onto stage.

Booth was handsome, and dashing; his fame transcended the stage. He was America’s first true celebrity, famous for things outside of exploration or military glory. His face was well known. The fact that he was a celebrity plays a crucial role in the assassination.

Booth knew the theater really well, knew the stage hands really well, knew the play OUR AMERICAN COUSIN really well.

He rode on a getaway horse the theater, and asked a boy who sold peanuts there to hold his horse. Then he slipped into the theater and using passages for props and actors, came up to the President’s box.

There he encountered a Lincoln man, a bodyguard. Booth calmly gave him his business card, with his name….a card naming him as a celebrity. Booth told the last line of defense that he wanted to enter the box to give his respects to the president, one  famous person to another.

The bodyguard acquiesced…..a celebrity was asking.

The bodyguard let Booth into the Presidential box.

In modern terms, it is Kim Kardashian who killed the President.

Once in the box, Booth waited in the shadows; he knew the play. He knew that an applause line was coming up, a BIG joke, that would set the audience off in loud convulsion of laughter, noisy laughter. He waited for that line;and when it happened,he stepped out of the shadows and shot the President.

No one heard the shot, not even those nearest the President.

Booth jumped from the box, but this time, since he was wearing spurs, his leg got caught in the bunting. He broke his leg upon the fall.

Lincoln was carried across the street to a private house( also on the tour) and died.

After the presentation, this Blogger was permitted to have a spirited discussion with the Park Ranger.

The Ranger presented the case that Lincoln was a great man because he was the Great Emancipator, and set things in motion to free the slaves, and give the vote to black males.

This Blogger disagreed; Lincoln was a great man because he is the personification of AMAZING GRACE; once he was lost and then he was found.

In Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, Lincoln offered the South, support for an amendment  that would have guaranteed slavery in the United States in perpetuity, for in that Amendment, the Corwin Amendment was language stating that it could not, never be repealed. “Corwin Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would shield "domestic institutions" of the states (which in 1861 included slavery) from the constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by Congress.”

The South rejected the offer.

Then Lincoln offered to send freed slaves back to Africa, enlarging Liberia.

FINALLY, he was found, and supported the ending of slavery, owning another person.

Lincoln was a great man not because he was a generic great man, but because he evolved into a great man.

Lincoln is not only Christ in Miniature; he is also the wretch saved by Grace.

Every American knows that Lincoln the Great war Lord would have evolved into Lincoln the Great Reconciler…..but alas John Wilkes Booth was a celebrity.