THE BOOK OF DAMN
YANKEES
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BOOK OF MANIFEST DESTINY
Lincoln buys Grant a drinkGrant keeps on thinking
Chapter 43
The Civil War lasted a long time,
2And involved hundreds of battles,
3Which happened in hundreds of places that nobody knows where they are to this day,
4dExcept southerners, of course,
5And explains why every Yankee still gets a glazed and distant look in his eye when he hears names like Chickamauga,
6And Shiloh,
7And Manassas,
8And the eWilderness,
9fWhere he knows something sad and bloody and desperately heroic occurred,
10Something terribly important to the history of his country,
11Which he would find deeply moving if he only knew what it was,
12Except that he doesn’t,
13gAnd therefore has to look glazed and distant instead.
14Anyway,
15With so much history going on all over the place, hit’s hard to pick out the really important things,
16iAlthough there must have been some,
17jOr nobody would remember the Civil War at all.
18Of course, everybody remembers something different,
19kWhich is what America is all about,
20And explains why the Yanks are so great,
21Unless it doesn’t.
22For example, the northerners remember that at some point, lAbraham Lincoln freed the slaves,
23Which they think was pretty terrific,
24And definitely worth remembering,
25Because it made the southerners so furious.
26Black people also used to think it was pretty terrific that mLincoln freed them,
27Until they found out nhe didn’t realy mean it,
28Or something,
29Which made it a lot less memorable,
30And a lot less important too,
31oFor some reason.
32On the other hand, even white southerners remember that pLincoln freed the slaves,
33And just wish they didn’t,
34qBecause they’d much rather remember what the north did to the south after aGrant became the union commander,
35Which was not nice,
36At all,
37And will never be forgotten by the south,
38Ever,
39Which still yearns for revenge,
40Because that’s the American way,
41Especially if you’re still nostalgic for the days when every white man was truly free,
42bAnd every negro knew his place.
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Chapter 43 / 154