The Truth of the War Conspiracy of 1861

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Johnstone was a Confederate officer during the Civil War, or as Johnstone favors “the War between SOVEREIGN States.” In 1917 - mid-World War I - he published this short text arguing that Lincoln and the Republicans were the true cause of the Civil War. His argument boils down to the proposition that Lincoln was working for war while talking piece. His evidence for this argument is that Lincoln was secretly sending reinforcements for Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, although the South had agreed to an armistice. It is extremely important to Johnstone to argue that the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Pickens prior to the shots fired at Fort Sumter.

So much of this argument amounts to “so what?” So what about secrecy? The Confederates fired on Fort Sumter because they knew that an attempt at resupply had happened. So what about an armistice? That was the Buchanan administration, those were federal forts, and Lincoln had not agreed to surrender. So what if Fort Pickens happened first? The actual motivating cause of the war was Fort Sumter.

Johnstone's approach to writing is odd. He details it as a kind of dialogue with his sword, the “Blade.”

Nonetheless, the book does offer some insights into the feeling of the time and the issues that were still white-hot 50 years later.