Confederate president Jefferson Davis's bloodthirsty rhetoric
@RonElFran (1214)
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
November 12, 2015 11:42am CST
I've been reading a speech Jefferson Davis made at Macon, Georgia on September 23, 1864. The whole Confederacy was reeling because Union General William Tecumseh Sherman had finally taken the city of Atlanta earlier in the month.
In their defense of Atlanta, the Confederates had launched a series of all-out attacks on Sherman that actually shattered their own army more than Sherman’s.
But in speaking to the crowd at Macon, Davis didn’t focus on the devastating defeat and overwhelming casualties the Confederates had suffered. Instead, he attempted to encourage his people by assuring them that “many a Yankee's blood was made to nourish the soil before the prize was won."
What struck me about that bellicose statement was how unlike it was to anything U. S. president Abraham Lincoln ever said. Where Davis wanted his people to celebrate the deaths of so many young men who fought to preserve the Union, Lincoln is best remembered for having “malice toward none, and charity for all,” including those who were fighting to break apart the nation.
It is often noted that Lincoln was a much more effective war leader than Davis. Ironically, Davis’s bloodthirsty rhetoric, and Lincoln’s lack of it, were major reasons for that difference.
2 people like this
2 responses
@peavey (16936)
• United States
12 Nov 15
Philosophically speaking, it seems to always be this way. There are those who are bloodthirsty, violent and just want their way regardless of who is hurt and there are those who seem to be brought into a position of righting a wrong or changing a situation, but doing so violently is only a last resort.
1 person likes this
@RonElFran (1214)
• Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
12 Nov 15
@peavey, I think that's a perceptive take on the difference between Davis and Lincoln.
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