Re the movie 'Lincoln': Yes, but...

If you've seen the movie Lincoln, I'm sure you'll agree it's worthy of all the awards it's bound to get.  It's an accurate potrait of Lincoln's uphill fight to get Congress to pass the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

And of course, the man himself also deserves his place in history among the greats not only for leading the cause to abolish slavey, but also for keeping the nation one nation.

But you'll have to forgive us Charlestonians if our recognition of his greatness is dimmed a bit by something else he did, by the unnecessary and useless barbarity he showed Charleston during the war's last 18 months.

After Charleston started the war by firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln ordered the Union army to attack.  Six thousand troops did, but 500 Charleston defenders repelled them.  So Lincoln had the navy attack, but Charleston repelled that, too.  So Lincoln ordered the army and navy to attack together.  But Charleston defeated that attempt, too.

So Lincoln ordered a 16,500-pound cannon be installed in a marsh a few miles from Charleston which would rain down destruction on the lower half of the Charleston peninsular - an area where there was no military presence, only civilian homes, shops and hospitals.  And although Confederate Gen. Pierre Beauregard told him he was about to "commit an act of unspeakable barbarity," Lincoln personally ordered his troops to bomb the city without end, which they did - for 540 consecutive days.

The attack stands today as the longest military siege in American history.  Lincoln smashed Charleston so hard that Gen. Sherman ignored us on his march up the coast from Savannah and burned Columbia instead.

So please understand if many Charlestonians, while acknowledging Lincoln's greatness, put an asterisk next to it.

-Skip