3

The lieutenant governor of the state, William J. Bross, walked the floor.

Actually, Bross wasn't elected to the post of lieutenant governor of Illinois until 1864 — four years after this scene takes place. In 1860, Bross worked for the Chicago Press & Tribune. Future editions will describe him as a Republican journalist. Thanks to Rodney Davis for this correction.

6

These historians — including Douglas Wilson, Rodney Davis, Michael Burlingame, and Allen Guelzo — had come of age in an era when the major oral histories were treated, as Davis has noted, “like nuclear waste.”

Davis writes: “I wish the characterization of reminiscence as ‘nuclear waste’ originated with me, but it’s originally Michael Burlingame’s line, from a History Channel program we were all in several years ago. I liked it so much, I guess, that I internalized it and passed it on to you without due attribution in our interview.”

127-128

On July 4, 1776, the day the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, slavery was legal throughout the thirteen colonies. But even before independence was realized, a legal schism had emerged in the colonies when Vermont enacted gradual emancipation. The other northern colonies — states after the Constitution took effect in 1789—soon followed.

William Lee Miller writes to me: “Vermont never had slavery — prohibited it in its constitution — therefore could not have had emancipation, gradual or otherwise. Vermont was not one of the original 13 but the first addition thereafter.”

Ouch. Thanks for this important correction. I asked my friend Adam Goodheart — who is writing a book on slavery in America — if he knew which state first outlawed slavery. Adam writes: “According to Ira Berlin’s excellent recent history Generations of Captivity, the first state to legislate (gradual) emancipation was Pennsylvania, in 1780. By the early 19th century, every state north of the Chesapeake had enacted a plan for emacipation, although due to the ‘gradualist’ approach (e.g., all children born after a certain date were born free), there were still a few slaves in states like New York and New Jersey until right before the Civil War.”

139

In the world Lincoln saw, by contrast, monarchy remained the default setting throughout Europe and Asia. The British were moving slowly toward representative government, but with most power retained by the aristocracy. The Greeks proclaimed their independence in 1829--and promptly set up a monarchy.

This passage wrongly suggests that the Greeks chose monarchy, whereas, in fact, King Otto I —  “the first king of the Hellenes” — was installed by a cabal of European powers in 1832. (Here’s Wikipedia on Otto of Greece.) Thanks to George Glastris for this correction. “Do you really think,” George writes us, “that the Greeks of all people would have chosen to have some inbred German/Dane rule them? Have you ever tried to tell a Greek what to do? If he’s on fire he’ll argue over the need for water!”

179

the battle of Shiloh in February 1862

Jeff Jones of Memphis, Tenn., corrects this embarrassing error: The Battle of Shiloh was April 6 and 7, 1862.