Frederick Douglass delivered Lincoln reality check at Emancipation Memorial

[David Lockmiller]

(07-05-2020 10:16 AM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  Many lives were lost and families shattered in accomplishing that goal.

That's one amazing fact that is virtually ignored by protesters. I read in one of the published stories on the monument history that 310,000 white Union soldiers and 40,000 black Union soldiers died in the Civil War.

The initial purpose was to save the Union and the institution of democracy for the world. The following is from post #15 of the referenced thread:

RE: Why Is the G.O.P. Fighting to Preserve Monuments to Traitors in the Capitol?

Lieutenant-Colonel William McCullough of the 4th Illinois Voluntary Calvary was a longtime friend of attorney Abraham Lincoln. McCullough had served many years as sheriff and clerk of the court for McLean County. When the Illinois Eighth Circuit Court traveled to Bloomington, Lincoln would sometimes stay with the McCullough family.

When the American Civil War came, William McCullough, an excellent horseman, volunteered to serve in the military but was rejected because of his age (48) and physical disabilities (loss of an arm in a farming accident and loss of an eye in a shooting accident). McCullough petitioned President Lincoln directly for permission to serve. Lincoln granted the petition and commissioned McCullough as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Illinois Calvary, which McCullough helped to organize; he was well-respected by his comrades.

Lieutenant-Colonel William McCullough of the Fourth Illinois Voluntary Calvary was killed in night warfare with Confederate forces at Coffeeville, Mississippi on December 5, 1862. After 22 year-old Fanny learned of her father’s death, according to her mother, she “neither ate nor slept since the tidings of his death, but shut herself in her room, in solitude, where she passed her time in pacing the floor in violent grief, or sitting in lethargic silence.” Recently-appointed Supreme Court Justice David Davis, a mutual friend of William McCullough, was informed of the family’s situation; he requested that President Lincoln write a letter of condolence.

Abraham Lincoln had suffered similar losses to that of the young Fanny McCullough. When Lincoln was only nine, his much loved mother called him to her side as she was dying from disease, saying to him: “I am going away from you, Abraham, and I shall not return.” Earlier in the year, on February 20, 1862, Lincoln’s own much loved 11 year-old son, Willie, died of disease at the White House, devastating President Lincoln.

Letter of condolence
Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 23, 1862.