Steven
Spielberg’s Lincoln, being based on
Abraham Lincoln and the time of the Civil War, is clearly a film based on
historical events. Although the movie
gives a good depiction on what it was like to be in the White House during that
time, there are a few, interesting small things that are historically
inaccurate about Lincoln. After some research, I have found a few
quirks that wouldn’t make the average audience think twice about, but made
historians a little frustrated. For
example, Mary Todd Lincoln would have never watched the final voting of the
thirteenth amendment from the House gallery.
In other words, she would not have been in the actual room of the
voting. Also, at the time of the Civil
War, the fifty cent piece never had Lincoln’s face on it, though they mention
it in the film. For one of his speeches,
Abraham Lincoln pulls his speech out of his hat in the movie, but was never
actually known to do such a thing.
Lincoln also never kept a portrait of William Henry Harrison in his
office. One big thing that the movie
switched around was who voted what when it came to the abolishment of
slavery. The Connecticut delegation
actually voted for the passing of the thirteenth amendment, but the film shows
it voting against it. Many events were
changed or switched around just for the pure reason of making the movie more
suspenseful and more entertaining for a twenty first century audience.
