The Intimate and Ugly Politics of Emancipation

Abstract

Toward the end of the film Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln is portrayed at the head of a small column of soldiers. An accompanying subtitle informs the audience that the president is on a battlefield just outside of Petersburg, Virginia on April 3, 1865. In the scene, Lincoln and the men behind him guide their horses carefully among the destroyed bodies of Union and Confederate soldiers. Smoke encircles the small group, giving the devastation a sense of immediacy, as if the echo of cannon fire only just had ceased. Mounds of earth and uniformed bodies are jumbled together with wagon wheels and overturned artillery. The images are not just somber; they induce a sense of horror. Historians maintain that the nine-month siege of Petersburg concluded with a Union victory, but the death that pervades this scene in Lincoln leaves no room for glory or honor. Following the climatic and celebratory moment when the Thirteenth Amendment passes the House of Representatives, the scene at Petersburg seems to undermine the film’s explicit lesson that the constitutional amendment would not only hasten the war’s end, it also would ensure the end of oppression. Lincoln’s face is gaunt as he surveys the carnage, and although Petersburg is but one location, the movie communicates to modern audiences that the president’s thoughts have drifted to the