In March Abraham Lincoln had written about slavery in an album sold at a Sanitary Fair auction, raising money for the Union Sanitary Commission’s hospitals. Further reflecting on the issue of slavery, the president on Monday, April 4, 1864 wrote that “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong… And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.” Lincoln knew that the appropriate way to end the institution of slavery was to oversee the defeat of the Southern armies; by April 1864 Lincoln was anxious for Ulysses Grant to begin his long awaited offensive against Robert E. Lee’s army. The ultimate end to slavery would come from Union victory on the battlefield.
00000174-b11b-ddc3-a1fc-bfdbb1a20000The Schreiner University Department of History is honoring the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a series of short vignettes focusing on events from 1861 through 1865. The Civil War was the most destructive conflict in American history, but it was also one of our most defining moments as a people and as a nation. Let us know what you think about "This Week in the Civil War." E-mail your comments to Dr. John Huddleston at jhuddles@schreiner.edu.Airs: Weekdays at 5:19 a.m., 8:19 a.m., 4:19 p.m. on KTXI and 4:49 a.m., 9:29 p.m. on KSTX.