{"id":110,"date":"2013-07-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yule-tide.generalsemiotics.net\/index.php\/2013\/07\/14\/post-103-when-lincoln-was-wrong\/"},"modified":"2013-07-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-14T00:00:00","slug":"post-103-when-lincoln-was-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/14\/post-103-when-lincoln-was-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-103: When Lincoln Was Wrong (Or, “Sincerity, Simplicity, and Humility Without Servility”)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lincoln’s Civil War letters, on the 150th anniversary of the writing of each, are being <\/span>transcribed\/published here:\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/span> LincolnsCivilWar.wordpress.com<\/a><\/strong><\/font>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span>\"Picture\"<\/a>Lincoln<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

I appreciate whoever is doing it.
<\/span>
A<\/span>n entry on July 13th, 2013<\/a> reproduces a letter by Lincoln to General Grant<\/strong> of July 13th, 1863, exactly 150 years earlier. Lincoln congratulates Grant on his victory in the then-recently-ended Vicksburg campaign. (Grant’s siege of Vicksburg ended July 4th, when the Confederate general surrendered — 30,000 Confederates became prisoners in a day. An entire Confederate field army, the Army of Mississippi, gone.) <\/span>Lincoln admits he was wrong and Grant was right about strategy.\n<\/div>\n
\n

[To] Major General Grant \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Executive Mansion,
<\/span>My dear General\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Washington, July 13, 1863.
I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. […..] I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.<\/strong>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yours very truly
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A. LINCOLN<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This warm\/humble style is characteristic of Lincoln. What other 19th-century leader would’ve written such a letter?<\/p>\n

<\/span>There is, I think, something very American <\/em>(old American) about Lincoln’s attitude there. I don’t have the verbal ability to concisely say what I mean, so I will lift the words of R.W. Emerson: “Sincerity, simplicity, and humility without servility<\/span>.” <\/strong>These were American “folk-virtues”, historically. (This personality-archetype has allowed Europeans these past few centuries to think of Americans as unsophisticated rubes). George Washington was like that. <\/span>Robert E Lee was like that<\/span>. A lot of now-living Americans are still like that, but people like that are not “cool” anymore. My father’s extended family is pretty much like that, I think. My mother’s side, too, but less so. <\/p>\n

<\/span>This reminds me of an observation someone had at the informal soccer games I’ve been at in Korea. Most players are British and some are North-American. You often hear the Americans play-down their own abilities (“I’m not very good”…), while the British\/Irish players never do. There’s not much difference in actual ability between us all, but you’d think North-Americans were far inferior from attitudes on display. That’s “American humility” at work, maybe.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Humility is “big” in East-Asia, too, of course. After over three years here now, though, it’s my impression that, when push comes to shove, East-Asian humility<\/strong> is usually (1) not <\/em>sincere, and (2) actually about servility<\/em>, not humility. I mean, among East-Asians, a person may appear humble or accomodating, but in fact is most often “submitting” because his\/her social position demands it (e.g. an employee submitting to the boss), not because he\/she is an independent actor in the world who is independently humble. Insincerity <\/em>also dominates social interactions here, more than I’ve ever seen among my own people. It’s that “face” thing, I guess. <\/p>\n

Anyway, n<\/span>o social pressure impelled Lincoln to write to Grant saying “you were right and I was wrong”. No social pressure impelled him, after news of the surrender at Appomattox arrived, ending the war, to order the White House band to play “Dixie”<\/em> — which he did, amazingly.\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nRelated:<\/strong> I wrote in post-102<\/a><\/strong> about the man who may well be the worst commander of the U.S. Civil War. <\/em><\/p>\n

Related: <\/strong>I wrote in post-14<\/strong><\/a> about a ‘relative’ <\/em>who was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.<\/em> I consider him to be the first person bearing my surname <\/em>to have lived in the <\/em>USA, and will continue to think so until I see contrary evidence.
<\/em>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lincoln’s Civil War letters, on the 150th anniversary of the writing of each, are being transcribed\/published here: LincolnsCivilWar.wordpress.com Lincoln I appreciate whoever is doing it.An entry on July 13th, 2013 reproduces a letter by Lincoln to General Grant of July 13th, 1863, exactly 150 years earlier. Lincoln congratulates Grant on his victory in the then-recently-ended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}