Portal:American Civil War/Featured article/Archive2007
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Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was an American politician who served as the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery and as commander in chief of the nation's armed forces oversaw the Union war effort during the American Civil War. Lincoln selected commanders and approved their strategies, selected senior civilian officials, supervised diplomacy, patronage and party operations. Rallying public opinion through messages like the Emancipation Proclamation and speeches such as his concise Gettysburg Address; Lincoln took a few short minutes to speak the address, but it had an enduringing impact on U.S. history, and American political thought. As president, Lincoln had strong opinions on plans for the abolition of slavery and the Reconstruction of the Union, but his untimely assassination just as the war ended made him a martyr and an icon of American nationalism.
[edit] August 18, 2007-September 30, 2007
William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the United States Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), receiving both recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy, and criticism for the harshness of his "scorched earth" policies while conducting total war against the enemy. Military historian Basil Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general". In 1864, Sherman became the Union commander in the western theater of the war. He proceeded to lead his troops to the capture of Atlanta. His subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas further undermined the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting. He accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865. After the Civil War, Sherman became Commanding General of the U.S. Army (1869–83). As such, he was responsible for the conduct of the Indian Wars in the western United States. In 1875, he published his Memoirs, one of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Civil War. (more...)
[edit] October 1, 2007-December 31, 2007
"Dixie", also known as "I Wish I Was in Dixie", "Dixie's Land" and other titles, is a popular American song. It is one of the most distinctively American musical products of the 19th century, and probably the best-known song to have come out of blackface minstrelsy. Although not a folk song at its creation, "Dixie" has since entered the American folk vernacular. The song likely cemented the word "Dixie" in the American vocabulary as a synonym for the Southern United States.
The song originated in the blackface minstrel show of the 1850s and quickly grew famous across the United States. Its lyrics, written in a racist, exaggerated version of African American Vernacular English, tell the story of a freed black slave pining for the plantation of his birth. During the American Civil War, "Dixie" was adopted as a de facto anthem of the Confederacy. New versions appeared at this time that more explicitly tied the song to the events of the Civil War. Since the advent of the American Civil Rights Movement, many have identified the lyrics of the song with the iconography and ideology of the Old South. Today, "Dixie" is sometimes considered offensive, and its critics link the act of singing it to sympathy for the concept of slavery in the American South. Its supporters, on the other hand, view it as a legitimate aspect of Southern culture and heritage.
