What the fuck?
Edit:
This is not Lincoln's auto-biography, which were all very short and for newspapers, but Wayne Whipple's biography of Lincoln's youth:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22925/22925-h/22925-h.htm
Whipple was using first person in describing what others have told him, which was acceptable practice in 1908, but not now. His sources, namely Lincoln's family and friends, are still reliable. In some sense this makes Lincoln's behavior worse, as this is all we know of what he did and was caught doing. Apologies for the mistakes! Sic semper tyrannis!
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@SuperSnekFriend
In best case scenario, I can interpret this as they sewed/tied the raccoon hide like improvised clothing. Made some kind of improvised straps or belts to hold the hide onto the dog.
Worst case scenario, we're talking about literally sewing the hide onto the dog's skin. I'm inclined to not believe this option, because holly fuck, imagine the pain! I don't think the dog would have just struggled against this. It would have bitten the hell out of the kids.
But if this latter version is what actually happened, I have to ask, was Lincoln an actual sociopath?
I considered that interpretation, but Lincoln says the dog "struggled vigorously" and it "beelined" to their home, as if in pain. Lincoln also described what he and John did as an "operation". That is not a description of a dog merely having something slipped over its mouth.
@SuperSnekFriend Operation has numerous meanings, not just medical operation. The military uses the word operation for their missions. He could just be using it as a synonym for "stunt". And since language changes over time, I don't think either of us knows for sure how it was used back then.
From what I know of animals, they're gonna struggle vigorously if you just try to hold them down for extended periods of time. And two kids fumbling about to how to tie something to a dog, that's gonna take time and annoy it.
I've seen dogs soft bite (play bite) at just getting annoyed or harassed. I just don't see a world where this dog wouldn't have bitten the kids when exposed to that kind of pain. Doesn't matter how well trained the animal is, when it starts becoming a matter of life and death, it's gonna use all the weapons it has.
You could argue I guess that Lincoln included "it bit us" in the "struggled vigorously", but if I were the write this, I'd definitely directly mention the worst of the dog's retaliatory actions. So if the dog had taken a bite, I would clearly say "and the fucker bit me".
Honestly, even my best case scenario is pretty odd behavior, to say the least. Actually, considering we would be talking about the hide of a freshly skinned raccoon, it is straight up disturbing on its own. I'm about 50/50 between the two possibilities. But if he admits to other similar disturbing acts, I'd be much more inclined to believe the worst case scenario.
When you are exacting a particular action onto a living being and calling it "an operation" the main and only use of the term is medical action, as in a surgery or some other manipulation of flesh. A 19th Century person would not hear that word in that context and think, "Oh, that means some stunt or some act for attention, like a military act." Stunt was not even a word until after Lincoln's death and only popularized a couple of years before Whipple's biography. "Operation" is most likely Whipple's words, not the person recording the event, because Whipple read the account and the part about sewing coon skin on dog skin and thought "surgery" not "military action". He thought a word for medical like acts best described to a young auidence what exactly Lincoln and Johnston did.
By the way, how does one merely overlap foreign skin on other skin, like a sleeve or sock, by *sewing* the foreign element onto that main skin, if you are correct about the word Whipple used? That's the crux of the issue. The historical witness, not Whipple, mainly said that Lincoln and his half-brother sewed skin on a living dog, which indirectly killed it through a misidentification, which upset the family. The unsourced witness is who you need to be addressing. I also have no reason to think Whipple was an embellisher or liar so don't play that card, unless you have a better biographer or scholar who said the event could never have happened because x,y, and z.
@SuperSnekFriend
>By the way, how does one merely overlap foreign skin on other skin, like a sleeve or sock, by *sewing* the foreign element onto that main skin
I don't think I understand what you're trying to ask here.
I'll try to reiterate my speculation of the best case scenario. Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough.
What I considered as a possibility is that the two essentially fashioned clothing for the dog, directly on the dog, like how a tailor or a seamstress will fashion clothes on a mannequin. They take cut pieces of cloth, lay them over the mannequin, and use pins to tie the pieces of cloth to each other in the places where they will later do the sewing.
Similarly, my scenario is that the two boys essentially used the dog as a mannequin, they wrapped the hide around its neck, or body, and sewed the ends of the hide together tightly against the body so that it wouldn't be able to slip past the legs. Imagine it like tying a belt around the dog's neck, or body.
I'm not accusing anyone of lying. Not Whipple, not the witnesses, and not you. My position is that the wording is not detailed enough for me to be 100% sure of what the act being described is. At the very least I see two possibilities. You want to assume the worst case scenario about Lincoln because you have an already formed bias. That's fine. I'm not saying you shouldn't believe this. I'm not even saying you're wrong. From the start I've considered it a valid possibility. But I don't have your bias, and I'll need more proof before I can interpret this story the same way you are, with the same confidence you have, and accuse him of being a sociopath.
Going back to the word "operation" a bit. I'm sure "stunt" wasn't a word until recently. That's irrelevant. I'm interested in the meaning behind the word, in the meaning of "doing a stupid action that you planned out". And my question is whether "operation" could have been used back then to convey a similar meaning too. As I said, let's be honest here, neither of us are historians. So don't give me the "oh, they wouldn't have thought of that meaning in this context". You don't know. And the context is two children doing very stupid things. The context isn't "performing surgery".
P.S. As an aside, a weird thing I just realized. The story came off to me initially like the kids did the sewing in a spur of the moment thing. But that couldn't be the case, cause I don't think they just happened to carry a sewing kit. This then shows premeditation of the act. Which I think is more consistent with a sociopath's behavior. I'd consider this stronger evidence for your interpretation than the argument regarding the word "operation".
@SuperSnekFriend
>Reiterating speculation is not an argument.
And you're also speculating. You don't KNOW what happened. You have a short description of some events that you interpreted in one way, and I provided another way it can be interpreted in. Neither of us know. Can you even comprehend that I'm not trying to argue against your interpretation? I already presented my argument, that being that a dog is gonna bite you if you subject it to that kind of pain. My latest post was trying to clarify what I felt was a misunderstanding you had regarding how I envisioned my scenario took place.
>The burden of proof is on you
No, I have reasonable doubt. The burden is on you if you insist the word was used this way or that way.
>You don't know me
>I was formally trained in English and in Biblical theology
>Biblical theology
Ha. I find it hilarious that you think that is something to be proud of. Not that I particularly believe it anyway. Rule #1: don't trust random strangers on the internet. Especially ones that are prone to being hostile.
Unless you want to spiral down further into attacks and personal insults, I don't see a point into continuing this.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it seems to me that you feel personally offended that someone sees a different scenario in those words than you do, and I can't comprehend why. It's not even like it paints Lincoln in that much better of a picture. Even if you take the sewing thing out entirely, we're still talking about a pair of brothers that think hunting raccoons for no discernible reason is fun, that clearly disobeyed family orders against it (seeing how they sneaked at night), who gladly handled/played with the freshly skinned hide of an animal, and who were happy that the family dog died. They already come out as really bad kids, with questionable psychology. Why is it so important to you that I agree with you on the sewing bit?
That you didn't answer my first question answers it and all the others.
Just stop pretending you can truly speak and know my language and stop being a Redditard who fights with long words instead of the truth. Have a good day!
1. Are you an ESL person?
2. Reiterating speculation is not an argument.
3. The burden of proof is on you to prove that youthful acts of attention were called "operations" in either Lincoln's time or at the time of Whipple's book and that this meaning of the word best describes what Whipple was trying to describe.
4. a. You don't know me, so don't insult my teachers or me as an argument. I was formally trained in English and in Biblical theology which both requires a careful science of interpreting texts. I'm not pulling shit out of my ass because I'm not accredited by you as a true and blue professional historian
b. If you really think not being a "professional history" is a terminating factor in interpreting text correctly, then you yourself need to heed your own words and shut up instead wasting everyone's time with a bad tasting, poorly cooked word salads