Also Wow. Only 4 comments for a great piece! I will be sharing. As usual, great reporting and and many thoughtful questions. Sorry that the 500 emails a day make it hard to get to some of the best things jamming the in box. I believe your take on the 40 acres comment is accurate. What might have been except for Lincoln's assassination. Hope rehab is helping. What you do best seems unimpaired.
On the 4 comments comment: This piece has been somewhat well-read, but by a little fewer than half the number of people who read the essay on me nearly becoming dead (Give the people what they want). On the what-might-have-been if Lincoln lived longer -- I think there was some other wavering among the Union leadership (also involving Sherman), in the way another commenter mentioned, that almost immediately caused a reversal:
"Robert E. Lee had surrendered April 9, 1865, to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. But a much larger, intact Southern army still operated in and around the Carolinas, and its leader, Joseph E. Johnston, cut a better deal with Sherman April 18. It represented the more 'compassionate and forgiving end' to the war that Abraham Lincoln had planned.
"But Lincoln had just been assassinated, and Grant related that the previous month, the president had decided that the surrender should involve only military matters. On April 26, Johnston signed a new surrender document reflecting that, against the orders of Confederate President Jefferson Davis."
Irv, the US government never promised that 40 acres & a mule, a single Union Army general, William Tecumseh Sherman did that, which means he had no legal basis to do that.
I'm under the impression that the 40 acres -loaned mule later- was handled legally, and approved by people in command including Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. I think Andrew Johnson, arguably a traitor in the White House, improperly rescinded the order and returned already-granted land to the rebels. It was a long time ago, and I wasn't there, but land did appear to actually change hands -- twice. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/
Also Wow. Only 4 comments for a great piece! I will be sharing. As usual, great reporting and and many thoughtful questions. Sorry that the 500 emails a day make it hard to get to some of the best things jamming the in box. I believe your take on the 40 acres comment is accurate. What might have been except for Lincoln's assassination. Hope rehab is helping. What you do best seems unimpaired.
On the 4 comments comment: This piece has been somewhat well-read, but by a little fewer than half the number of people who read the essay on me nearly becoming dead (Give the people what they want). On the what-might-have-been if Lincoln lived longer -- I think there was some other wavering among the Union leadership (also involving Sherman), in the way another commenter mentioned, that almost immediately caused a reversal:
https://irvleavitt.substack.com/p/statues-dont-say-much-but-they-keep
"Robert E. Lee had surrendered April 9, 1865, to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. But a much larger, intact Southern army still operated in and around the Carolinas, and its leader, Joseph E. Johnston, cut a better deal with Sherman April 18. It represented the more 'compassionate and forgiving end' to the war that Abraham Lincoln had planned.
"But Lincoln had just been assassinated, and Grant related that the previous month, the president had decided that the surrender should involve only military matters. On April 26, Johnston signed a new surrender document reflecting that, against the orders of Confederate President Jefferson Davis."
Was that really what Lincoln wanted? Hard to say now.
Irv, the US government never promised that 40 acres & a mule, a single Union Army general, William Tecumseh Sherman did that, which means he had no legal basis to do that.
I'm under the impression that the 40 acres -loaned mule later- was handled legally, and approved by people in command including Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. I think Andrew Johnson, arguably a traitor in the White House, improperly rescinded the order and returned already-granted land to the rebels. It was a long time ago, and I wasn't there, but land did appear to actually change hands -- twice. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/
Wow.
Watch the documentary Push 9 if you get a chance to see it. It’s about Harold Washington and the racist Chicago political machine.