Lincoln’s frontal-assault reaction to the hatred that engulfed the entire nation is best summarized by the story of Henry L. Benbow, told by Carl Sandburg in his Putzler prize-winning Lincoln biography.
According to Sandburg, in February of 1865, a few weeks before the war’s end, Lincoln was visiting the front at City Point Virginia, and in the course of that visit toured the sick and wounded. During that tour he happened on a tent filled with Confederate sick and wounded. The ranking officer conducting the presidential tour stopped him, saying, ‘you can’t go in there, Mr. President; that tent’s full of Rebs.’
And if Abraham Lincoln were like 99% of the people of the North, whether field commander or private; small child or business man; wife, mother, daughter, sister, he invariably would have said, ‘thank you for the warning, I certainly don’t want to waste any of my time on that rabble; they’re the ones responsible for all this death and destruction.’ And, unless he were a woman or a small child, would certainly have added, ‘God damn them to hell!’
That’s not what he said. What he did say was, ‘that’s the very place I mean to go,’ and he stepped inside...
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