The True Story of the American Civil War
Let’s get one thing straight. The American Civil War was long and included a list of battles as long as shit. Allow me to condense it into tasty, bite-sized morsels for you.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln – he’s the tall, gangly dude with the beard and funny hat, who looked like Jimmy Stewart - was elected president, despite only managing to garner 40% of the popular vote. He was the guy who said, regarding slavery, "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free...", which pissed off a lot of people in the South, who immediately polished their muskets and rushed to the dry cleaners with their white robes and pointy white hats, all in a tizzy.
In the first few months of Lincoln’s presidency, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, all seceded from the Union, unhappy with all that Yankee claptrap about all people being equal, regardless of skin color and human beings not being permitted to “own” other human beings. I'm unclear what baseball had to do with anything however.
By spring of 1861 the South was so pissed off, their grits were going sour. Some French-named idiot, Pierre Beauregard, got a bee in his bonnet about something or other and dragged his Confederate derriere to Charleston, South Carolina where he opened fire with some big, scary cannons. At whom or what I don’t know, just pretend you’re with me, people. Anyway, somehow that started the Civil War.
It’s sort of ironic when you think about it, because the French are normally running away from wars, or surrendering in the first hour, so old Pierre was something of a rarity.
Lincoln, slightly alarmed by this rudeness, called a meeting of Congress and asked for 75,000 men to come and help kick some Confederate butt. This dude named Robert E. Lee, who held a high post in the U.S. Army, and who rode around in an orange 1970s’ car with a Confederate flag emblazoned on the roof (I can’t remember if he was the blonde or the brunette though…), was offered charge of the Union army. He spat on the ground and said, “Bite me, Abe!” or words to that effect, causing Lincoln to turn white and call for his mama.
Just after this, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina seceded from the Union also, which left the Union holding only states where people had proper dental hygiene and professional hairdressers. This however, meant that the Confederacy held eleven states, all of dubious orthodontic merit, with a population of nine million people and four million slaves, who, as we all know, are not people at all.
Nine million people with mullets is a pretty scary concern for any attacking army.
Lincoln, getting ticked off with these shenanigans, unleashed a medieval ass whooping in the form of a blockade on Southern Ports, blocking supplies to the south for the rest of the war, causing people to eat their own grandmothers' ear lobes and wear clothing made from leaves. You might not read that anywhere else, because not everyone is as in the know as I am. Word!
In disgust, Robert E. Lee resigned his post in the U.S. army and ran away to Richmond, Virginia, where he had a little girl hissy-fit, before taking over command of the military and naval forces of Virginia for the Confederacy.
Meanwhile, Congress thought, “Oh shit!” and immediately called up 500,000 more men for the Union.
The Union army, headed by a huge Yankee, Irvin McDowell (must've been a pitcher I guess) got their asses handed to them on a platter at Bull Run, southwest of Washington D.C. and Abe replaced McDowell with George B. McClellan, whose head immediately swelled to the size of a large beach ball, with all the power he thought this meant he held over Congress, the president and the country. He was a little bit like Bill O’Reilly today, only with more guns and minus the designer ties.
For the next three years a whole lot of stuff happened. Frequent bloody battles were to the Civil War, what large lapels, armpit sweat, perms and disco were to 1977. In the war there was little dancing but the choreography was eerily similar…
On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. This was the declaration of freedom for the slaves in those Confederate states not held by the Union, and which people in the South didn’t care for one iota, mainly because it meant they’d have to either pay their slaves, or learn how to wash their own frigging dishes.
The same year Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address which lost me after the second line but which basically called upon people to continue kicking ass for the Union in honor of all the dead soldiers, whom he dedicated the Address to. He then buried all the dead soldiers in General Lee’s back garden and called it Arlington.
In 1864, Lincoln put Ulysses S. Grant in charge of the Union army. This was way before some other dude put him on the fifty dollar note. Grant decided to go after General Lee and some heavy scene went down in Richmond, but I fell asleep during that part in history class and all I can remember was some Confederate ass took a kicking and Lee surrendered like a Frenchman.
That was pretty much the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, since the North had effectively and spitefully cut them off from the vital supplies they needed to continue the war. The last Confederate army surrendered in 1865 in Indian (feathers not dots) Territory, giving the North its victory.
In April 1865 some asshole actor named John Wilkes Booth, who had a lithp lovey, took exception to Lincoln’s support for voting rights for blacks, crept up behind Lincoln in the Ford’s Theater in Washington and shot him in the back of the head. What a gentleman. Lincoln died the next day and as a consolation got his face printed on a five-dollar note, in a portrait that makes him look seasick for all eternity.
