When I was a weird little kid, obsessed with history and the Civil War, I always rooted for the South, because the South always lost in the end. There is an implicit romance for little boys in lost causes and perpetual grievance, but when it came to the Civil War, I simply felt that the less interesting side had won. This opinion was not random: I was the kind of kid who, after fourth grade, pestered my parents into spending a full three days of our family vacation at Gettysburg, and cried during the group bus tour we took, at the failure of Pickett’s Charge and the inevitable Confederate loss. The Gettysburg Address portion of the tour didn’t console me. I identified with the rebels.
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Alas, I was born in the North. I have always lived in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, where HE is everywhere. Statues, stores, highways, restaurants and insurance companies gleam with his visage. Kindly-looking Lincoln re-enactors even regularly came to my grade school in northwest suburban Crystal Lake, but I regarded their winning folksiness with skepticism. Robert E. Lee never showed up to tell his side of the story. Lincoln, on the other hand, was oppressively familiar. Every year, the tale of his ultimate victory was taught in history class; humble Abe and his ruthless henchmen in Union blue always came out on top.
During his life, of course, Lincoln was a divisive figure, and he still has detractors. Many of the books written about him by historians and scholars, amateur and careerist alike, have found his character lacking, his ambition and will to power troubling and the myth built around him shabby. For some, he was a war-hungry radical, a racist, or far too liberal, or not nearly liberal enough. His background, motives and ministrations remain the basis of endless debate.
