Explanation:
1. Misconce.ption: Lincoln’s policies enjoyed widespread support in the North.
The story of the Civil War is all about division within one’s own country. But the schisms ran deeper than just North against South—there were also cracks within the Union itself, even after the Southern states seceded.
2. Misconcep.tion: Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were staunch secessionists.
Jefferson Davis, the man who would eventually become the Confederacy’s first and only president, was originally a senator from Mississippi who opposed early calls for secession. But when Davis learned that his home state officially voted to leave the union in January 1861, he decided to stick by his state, rather than his country. He did so with a heavy heart, saying it was “the saddest day of my life.”
3. Misconce.ption: The Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery
When President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, it declared: “[All] persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
