Reply #28: I vote for Lincoln's calling forth the militia [View All]

and giving each state a quota to raise to help invade the seven seceeded states.

That stupid decision forced Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee to get off ther fence and choose which side they were on. They chose the Confederacy and the Civil War led to 600,000 deaths.

The Confederacy could not have fielded a reasonable army without Virginia, North Cariolina and Tennessee. They were three of the CSA's four most populous states and they had chosen not to secede or send representatives to Montgomery where the Confederate government was forming. In fact Tennessee had just had a popular pledesite on whether to call a secession convention, and the voters narrowly said no.

So Lincoln, in Bull in the China Shop, GW ush would be proud diplomacy forced those wavering states to decide and they left.

Virginia left and brought Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, JEB Stuart etc with it. North carolina ended up losing more men than any other state, north or south.

To me, Lincoln wins the award for the stupidest mistake in US history.