Web Video / Checkmate, Lincolnites!

Billy Yank wearing blue, Johnny Reb wearing gray

Johnny Reb: Why did the North invade the South in 1861? Was it because they "hated slavery"?
Billy Yank: No, it was to save the Union.
Johnny Reb: CHECKMATE, LINCOLNITES!
[title theme version of "Dixie" drowns out Billy's further explanations]

—"Was it REALLY the WAR of NORTHERN AGGRESSION?!?!?!"

Checkmate, Lincolnites! is a historical adult YouTube Edutainment Show created by Andrew "Atun-Shei Films" Rakich. The main goal of the series is to debunk, disprove and simultaneously ridicule the core beliefs of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, a pseudohistorical interpretation of The American Civil War that claims, among many other things, that the South did not fight to preserve the institution of Slavery and that the war was really about the concept of "States' Rights".

The show is presented in a Socratic debate format between two fictional characters, consisting of:

• Johnny Reb^note The first episode features a Confederate cavalry officer who acts wildly differently from Johnny Reb, but later episodes insist they are the same person, a Hot-Blooded, die-hard Lost Causer who proposes the Driving Question of each video. Most of his claims are sourced directly from the Atun-Shei Films comment section.

• Billy Yank^note Very rarely referred to as "Billy Fed", a calm, rational proponent of the Union who debunks Johnny's claims each episode with cold, hard facts.

It should be noted that while the show is in debate format, it does not attempt to in any way present the Lost Cause as an equally valid alternative historical viewpoint, nor does it paint the Union as unambiguously good or the South as unambiguously bad. Its goal is purely to fight revisionism and propaganda on the internet.

The series is comprised of ten episodes, the first of which, originally intended to be a standalone video, came out on May 23, 2019. The Series Finale is currently projected for a May 2024 release. Check out a more detailed episode guide here.

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Checkmate, Lincolnites! contains examples of:

• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
  • When Johnny Reb adds half a bottle of whiskey to a cup of coffee, it gets him so drunk so quickly that he starts babbling incoherently about black Confederate soldiers^note In reality, he was reading out a YouTube comment so full of spelling and grammar errors that Atun-Shei decided it would make Johnny sound like he was drunk before slurredly proclaiming that episode's Title Drop.
  • Johnny also claims that the TRUE history of the American Civil War was revealed to him by his grandpappy one Lee-Jackson day after he had "consumed an entire 12-pack of Natty Light all by hisself".
• Alternative Character Interpretation: invoked While Billy Yank acknowledges that it's possible Nathan Bedford Forrest's call for peace and tolerance between whites and blacks was borne out of a genuine change of heart, he believes it's also possible that Forrest decided a show of magnanimity would suit his interests.
• Argentina Is Nazi Land: The Stinger for "Wasn't it KINDA about STATES RIGHTS?!" shows Klaus visiting an aged, dying Alternate Self living in Argentina in The '70s.
• Artifact of Doom: Several post-credits Stingers detail Klaus the Nazi's search for and eventual acquisition of the Sword of Baron Samedi, a weapon once owned by P.T. Beauregard which is said to be capable of resurrecting the dead. Klaus proves the myth true when he travels to the Cemetery dos Americanos in Brazil to resurrect all the most noteworthy Confederates as his allies using the sword's power.
  Alternate Universe Klaus: This was no ordinary army sword. Its blade was made by night, deep in the Louisiana swamp, in the hidden forge encircled by a nameless bayou. This blade is said to have the power to bridge the gap between the worlds of the living...and the world of the dead. [Dramatic Thunder]
• Artifact Title: When the series first started out, it was very clearly Johnny Reb's show where he was inviting (or sometimes blackmailing) Atun-Shei/Billy Yank on, and was styled after one-sided internet debate shows that obviously have a bias against the guest speaker ("Confederate DESTROYS Yankee with FACTS and LOGIC"), with Johnny outright insulting and belittling his opponent's views. However, around the same time that Billy Yank became a distinct character from Atun-Shei, it became clearer that he and Johnny co-hosted the show and it functions more as a good-faith debate show in its current form (although Billy Yank still generally comes out on top, and it's made clear that his views still mainly align with Atun-Shei's own views).
• Awesome, but Impractical: The ultimate judgment of most Confederate commanders in the American Civil War. Lee in particular is singled out as a spectacular tactician who regularly won incredible field victories that military historians fawn over, without usually meaningfully advancing the Confederacy's long term or big picture war aims as he lost men and materials his army and the rebellion couldn't really spare.
• Berserk Button: In the episode of Checkmate Lincolnites! focusing on General Sherman, at one point Johnny Reb claims Sherman was only good at attacking civilians and couldn't win a real fight. This causes the normally restrained Billy Yank to pull out his pistol and shove it in Johnny Reb's face, forcing him to tearfully repeat what he just said. Subverted in that right after this he holsters his gun and calmly explains why Johnny Reb's claim was untrue.
  Billy Yank: [whipping out a Hand Cannon] The FUCK you just say?
  Johnny Reb: [panicked] Oh, Billy Yank, that's not funny, p-put the gun down, please…
  Billy Yank: NO, REALLY, I COULDN'T HEAR YOU, WHY DON'T YOU SAY THAT AGAIN!?
• Beyond the Impossible: In episode 7, God Himself rewards Johnny Reb with a primary source supposedly proving the existence of Black Confederates after Johnny beseeches him for help. Said primary source also turns out to be flimsy at best and wrong at worst, meaning even the omnipotent God can't lend the Lost Cause any credence.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • In episode 5, Billy Yank explains while the unspeakable violence committed on Southern civilians by the Union Army during Sherman's March to the Sea can't be in any way justified (especially the evisceration of Columbia, South Carolina due to riotous and drunken Union soldiers, of which Sherman famously remarked that it was the Confederates' own fault for leaving a bunch of alcohol behind for his men to get drunk with), he does advance the point that Sherman's brutal and calculated destruction of Southern resources did bring the war to a swifter conclusion in the way he intended, making it very difficult to determine whether the means he took to end the war were justified or not.
  • Similarly, while the Northern states are depicted as appallingly white-supremacist and having plenty of skeletons in their closets regarding things like Indian genocides and slavery, it's stressed that they were still the lesser evil in their conflict with the Southern states from basically the Jackson administration onward, as the wealthy plantation owners that controlled Southern politics constantly pushed for stripping away the few rights free African-Americans had, deploying ruthlessly authoritarian measures to silence political dissenters and outsiders in a way that made clear what a fig leaf their supposed political libertarianism really was, pushing through things like the Indian Removal Act, and, of course, constantly pushing not only for the preservation of the institution of slavery but its active expansion, often through violence and military conquest.
• Blatant Lies: Johnny Reb says "No it's not, and I say that as a Latino" in "Did Confederate Soldiers FIGHT for SLAVERY?!" Johnny is white and played by a Serbian-American actor from New England.^note He was reading a YouTube comment from a viewer who may very well have been Latino, but in-universe all the comments are Johnny Reb's dialogue, since the show is a Socratic debate.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • This is how General Meade is characterized by both Johnny and Billy, but Johnny means it as an insult and Billy as a compliment. Johnny tries to argue that Meade holed up on top of a hill at Gettysburg and just let the rebel army exhaust itself assaulting high ground with inferior numbers, while Billy, though he outright says Meade wasn't a very creative general or a genius, points out numerous places where Meade could have, and where less competent military officers even thought he had, made big mistakes, and instead just did everything right while Lee, in true Confederate fashion, pursued yet another daring tactical victory that ultimately destroyed him.
  • Joseph E. Johnston is singled out as the only senior Confederate general who seemed to actually understand that since they were up against a vastly superior enemy in terms of material, industry, and manpower they ought to fight like it. No one wanted to hear it, which is why he was replaced with John Bell Hood, who led the army Johnston used to command with some success to utter annihilation at the hands of George Henry Thomas.
• Call-Back:
  • In "Confederate DESTROYS Yankee with FACTS and LOGIC", when the unnamed Confederate cavalry officer starts claiming that there's nothing wrong with being "superior" (as in, claiming one's nationality makes them superior, or that being white makes one superior, as in white supremacy), Atun-Shei brings back the Confederate Monument Racist-o-Meter from "Were the Confederate Monuments of New Orleans Racist?" (with "YouTube Comments" crudely scribbled instead of "Confederate Monument", since the unnamed Confederate cavalry officer is actually reading a YouTube comment) to show how racist the comment is - and Atun-Shei makes the arrow swing wildly in the highest rating, "Hitler!"
  • In Did the CONFEDERACY Have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!, Johnny gets excited upon hearing Nathan Bedford Forrest's testimony before Congress that he had black teamsters during the war he'd promised to free if the Confederacy won, claiming "Better Confederates did not live." He's jumping up and down and shouting "Black Confederates!" repeatedly before Billy gently reminds him that they've already discussed how Forrest is referring to the slaves the Confederacy took with them on campaign in "Were There Really BLACK CONFEDERATES???!!!".
  • Later, in "Wasn't it KINDA about STATES RIGHTS?!", flashbacks to scenes from earlier episodes occur repeatedly, often with jokes about how long it's been going on. A in-universe news broadcast also repeats a description from an earlier episode as a "wildly unpopular YouTube show."
  • In "Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!", Johnny calls Billy a "biased, moralizing Yankee soy boy", referencing how he calls Billy a soy boy all the way back in Episode 1.
• The Cameo: Matt Beat from the Mr. Beat YouTube channel appears in "Wasn't it KINDA about STATES RIGHTS?!" as a newscaster.
• Card-Carrying Villain: The Confederate cavalry officer that Atun-Shei argues against in the first episode ("Confederate DESTROYS Yankee with FACTS and LOGIC"). Unlike Johnny Reb, who at least acknowledges that slavery was bad (even if he erroneously insists the Confederacy didn't fight to preserve that institution), this character is proud of the fact that he was a slave-owner.
  Confederate Cavalry Officer: LOL, look at this soy boy! Thinks slavery is wrong.
• Celebrity Resemblance: In the first episode, "Confederate DESTROYS Yankee with FACTS and LOGIC", the unnamed Confederate cavalry officer Atun-Shei argues with introduces him as "the dollar-store Jaime Lannister."
• Character Development: At the beginning of the show, Johnny Reb tunes out any argument Billy Yank makes, and frequently gets distracted or fidgets in his chair, not fully paying attention. By "Wasn't it KINDA about STATE'S RIGHTS!?!?!?!?!?" he's listening to Billy's every word earnestly, and looks like he's actually changing his mind. This makes it all the more tragic when he falls back into his old behavior at the end of "Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN!?!?!!?!?!".
• Christmas Episode: "Were There Really BLACK CONFEDERATES???!!!" clearly takes place at Christmastime, with the duo having added heavier winter gear to their uniforms and exchanging gifts, as well as a surprise cameo from God/Jesus, played by a still image of Ewan MacGregor^note Referencing how pictures of him, especially as Obi-Wan Kenobi, are frequently mistaken for Jesus by older folks.
• Compartment Shot: While Johnny is busy being exorcised of Klaus the Nazi by the Witchfinder General, we momentarily cut away to see a shot of Billy opening a fridge and grabbing another bottle of beer.
• Common Knowledge:invoked A major point of Checkmate, Lincolnites! is to attempt to dispel many commonly accepted facts about the Civil War and the Confederate States that have helped colorize the conflict. Some examples include:
  • That the Confederacy was doomed from the outset and had no realistic chance of winning the American Civil War because of the overwhelming difference in resources between the Confederacy and the Union. Although the show goes out of its way to make it clear that, yes, the difference in industrial capacity and manpower between the two sides really was that big, Billy points out that plenty of other historical wars with huge differentials in military capacity haven't always ended in favor of the side with the bigger numbers. While the South were definitely the underdogs, they had a good shot of winning, assuming they could break the North's will to keep up the fight. And while, yes, the difference in resources played a part, their ultimate loss owed just as much (if not more) to their generals' pursuit of flashy tactical victories that didn't really further their war aims and bled out resources they couldn't afford to lose, especially once the North started promoting strategically-minded commanders that actually knew how to properly bring their superior resources to bear.
  • Ulysses S. Grant being an alcoholic who would just throw troops into battle and win by sheer numbers. Grant did have alcohol issues, but he never drank before a battle, and was more of a binge/social drinker. He also wasn't someone who just threw men to die, but rather was a strategic general, and he had a large loss of troops due to just how intense factors outside his control often were. Attention is drawn to the line of Union generals before him who also had huge numbers of men on their side and lost; Grant's ability to actually bring his superior army to bear and win the war was a sign that he wasn't just carelessly throwing men at the problem.
  • The idea that "slavery was on its way out". Billy points out that likely had the South won or at least won enough to remain separated from the Union, they likely would have adapted slavery into the rising technological advancements to come rather than just abolished it, since they were already working to internally industrialize with slave-labor factories to out compete the North in the long term. So long as slavery was profitable in any way, it would probably have remained, and the South outright intended to try to persuade other countries to readopt it. It's maybe possible it would have died down, but very likely not, definitely not without heavy external diplomatic pressure and almost certainly not within the original Confederate generation.
  • Relatedly, the idea that Confederate soldiers were overall just defending their homes and had no stake in the slavery question. While plenty of soldiers did come from the lower classes of Southern society, enlistment was actually disproportionately high among slave-owners, and even the lower classes bought into the idea that slavery was simply too deep a part of their society to get rid of, and that a mass slave insurrection that would destroy a Southern way of life they saw themselves as a part of would follow any attempt at abolition or emancipation.
  • The idea that Lincoln was a racist towards black slaves. Atun-Shei doesn't deny that Lincoln and the North didn't initially make the conflict about slavery rather than about stopping the South from breaking away, but he points out that many of the "Lincoln was a racist" arguments draw on sources from before he became President, and were likely just Lincoln trying to win the office however he could at a time when the majority of his voters were white supremacists. Lincoln wasn't a die-hard abolitionist, but he did take anti-slavery positions throughout his time in political office and did eventually make abolition a major war aim, something which it's pointed out cost him in the short term, with the Union army experiencing many desertions and internal insurrections like the New York Draft riots directly sparked by the Emancipation Proclamation, but ultimately spelt the Confederacy's doom by drying up all their hopes of foreign aid forever.
  • An entire episode was devoted to the history of "states' rights" as a political philosophy to show how it increasingly ceased to have any real connection to actual libertarianism or local vs. federal government sentiment, how it became deeply intertwined with slavery and Southern sectarianism, and, ultimately, how many Confederates were eager to totally abandon it as the fig leaf that it was in favor of increasing centralization and nationalization as soon as they started to make their own country, with many embracing outright reactionary, autocratic, anti-democratic, anti-republican, and authoritarian ideas — up to and even including literal theocracy, military dictatorship, and absolute monarchy.
• Continuity Snarl: Combined with Early-Installment Weirdness, Checkmate, Lincolnites! clearly plays fast and loose with its own continuity, usually for laughs. The first episode has Atun-Shei, as himself in plain clothes, debating a Confederate cavalry officer, and it eventually ends with Atun-Shei shooting him dead. While from the second episode onwards Johnny Reb is established as he usually would appear afterwards (as in, as a Confederate soldier rather than a Confederate cavalry officer) and through the second and third episodes the person he argues against resembles Billy Yank more, said person is still Atun-Shei — in the second episode he recalls shooting the Confederate cavalry officer, and in the third he appears in plain clothes again at the beginning, telling Johnny Reb that he's tired of making videos debunking Confederate myths since they appear to be fruitless, only to be convinced back into arguing with Johnny Reb when the latter tells him that now he'll be free to claim that the Civil War was fought over tariffs and taxes. And even in regards of Johnny Reb, when Atun-Shei asks him in the second episode if he wasn't the Confederate cavalry officer he shot dead in the previous episode, Johnny Reb denies it... even though Atun-Shei points out that he has a blood-stained Confederate cavalry officer uniform at his feet, causing Johnny Reb to get nervous and segue away to the show's intro. This gets even more confusing in "Wasn't it KINDA about STATES' RIGHTS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!", when Billy Yank specifically says that he and Johnny talked about the Corwin Amendment in Episode 1 before flashing back to Atun-Shei talking with the Cavalry Officer, seemingly making the definitive statement that that is him and Johnny.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Billy Yank usually dominates his discussions with Johnny Reb and it's his perspective that wins out. That being said, Johnny does make the occasional point that Billy is unable to refute and sometimes forces Billy to acknowledge some hypocrisy or moral shortcoming on the pro-Union side, so things aren't completely one-sided.
• Dated History: Discussed in ""Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!"", which explains how Lost Cause mythology got its start, how it became widely accepted, and how it was eventually discredited.
• Dead Artists Are Better: While Billy says that "Stonewall" Jackson was indeed a great general, even admitting he likes Jackson, he argues that Jackson's death shortly before the South was forced on the defensive and never really got back to attacking was probably the best thing that could've happened to his reputation. While Jackson's brilliance as an offensive general was unmatched, he often froze up when pushed on the defensive and would almost certainly have made huge, reputation-staining mistakes (some of which Billy points out might have already happened, largely glossed over by history thanks to his posthumous legend) had he been forced to fight in the desperate last days of the war as Grant ground Virginia's defenses into paste.
• Depending on the Writer: Lampshaded in "Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!" when Billy Yank acknowledges the show's use of YouTube comments as a voice for Johnny Reb, which naturally results in him delivering good-faith arguments half the time and frothing at the mouth the other half.
  Billy Yank: It's very uncanny, how you go from just totally insane to completely reasonable at the drop of a hat, it's just... profoundly weird.
• Dissimile: When Billy Yank beats Johnny Reb in a game of chess, Johnny claims it was inevitable that Billy would have one because of all his "industry and naval power and such"^note Alluding to a common claim of the Lost Cause version of history where the South lost purely because of the overwhelming resources and manpower of the north as opposed to the South wasting their supplies on flashy Pyrrhic Victories and losing a war of attrition, which obviously don't exist in Chess whatsoever.
  Billy Yank: Naval power? What board game were you playing?
• Distinction Without a Difference: In "Did the CONFEDERACY have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!", when the topic of Confederate cavalry general Nathan Bedford Forrest comes up:
  Billy Yank: Nathan Bedford Forrest, right, uh, slave trader, Klan leader...
  Johnny Reb: Repentant Klan leader!
  Billy Yank: Oh, well that's ok, then!
• Double-Meaning Title: "Did the Confederacy have Better Generals?" examines the claims that Confederate generals were superior both at military matters and in terms of morality.
• Double Standard: Humorously invoked in "Wasn’t it KINDA About STATES’ RIGHTS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" in a discussion about Shays' Rebellion.^note Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising mainly in Western Massachusetts response to citizens being in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on individuals and their trades, led by American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, and which unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the state government.
  Johnny Reb: Sounds like a buncha troublemakin' freeloaders lookin' for a handout...
  Billy Yank: They were white.
  Johnny Reb: Brave rebels! The tree of liberty must sometimes be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants!^note A quote by Thomas Jefferson, and a bit of subtle humor. Jefferson said it in support of Shays' Rebellion, but as a slaveowner, found himself much less enthusiastic at the prospect of oppressed underclasses rising up in rebellion in the face of the mass slave revolt in Haiti, catalyzing his increasingly-reactionary views on slavery and African slaves later in life.
• The Dreaded: General Ulysses S. Grant is this for Johnny Reb. Just hearing his name spoken aloud sends poor Johnny into a nightmare/hallucination of the "unconditional surrender speech" being read by Billy Yank in a raspy, demonic voice while the room flashes red and green.
• Dude, Not Funny!: During one of Johnny Reb's rants about wild hypotheticals that would lead to Southern independence (such as Sherman spontaneously combusting and Britain joining the war) he makes an extended reference to Judah P. Benjamin ("The Jewish Confederate") opening the Ark of the Covenant to vaporize the Army of the Potomac a la the villains of Raiders of the Lost Ark, who keep in mind, are Nazis:
  Billy Yank: Woah! ... [into microphone, as Johnny continues] I'd like to formally apologize for what he just said about Judah P. Benjamin.
• Enforced Plug: Parodied in "Was GENERAL SHERMAN a WAR CRIMINAL?!?!?!?!" Both Johnny Reb and Billy Yank are forced at gunpoint to do a plug for Atun-Shei Films Merch, with obviously stilted and forced dialogue. The second they're not at threat of being shot in the head they immediately remove their Product Placement shirts, with Johnny mumbling "Who wears this? How embarrassing!"
• Entertainingly Wrong: Johnny Reb. Almost all his claims come from real Lost Causers in the Atun-Shei comment section, and some of them are more wacky than others. A crown example of this is when he repeats a claim that the South was paying 80% of all U.S. taxes in the 1860s, long before the Income Tax existed.
  Billy Yank: So... that's... not true. that's not even remotely true, that's not in a 50 mile radius of truth! Like, if you dropped an atomic bomb on Truth, what you just said wouldn't even have radiation burns.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first Checkmate, Lincolnites! has Atun-Shei in plainclothes, where subsequent videos have him in costume as "Billy Yank." The unnamed Confederate Cavalry Officer is there instead of "Johnny Reb" while the backdrop is just the confederate flag, rather than the union confederate flag hybrid. A more minor example, but from episode 1-3 (or 5 given the callback to the Whataboutism Drinking Game) the Union Soldier is Atun-Shei in a uniform instead of Billy Yank, and in the second episode Johnny Reb is implied to be the confederate cavalry officer from the first episode.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Johnny Reb's personality is based on Youtube comments, so the extent of his racism varies from episode to episode. One comment, however, was so racist that Atun-Shei decided that it didn't fit Johnny Reb, and wrote it as Klaus the Nazi possessing Johnny and having to be exorcised. Despite being an unapologetic admirer of the Confederacy and a proponent of the "Lost Cause" ideology, it's made clear that Johnny Reb believes that slavery was wrong, and that he would never openly express racist sentiments.
  • On the flip-side: Billy Yank is generally an ardent defender of the Union, and he's pretty committed to dismantling most of the popular talking points espoused by Confederate apologists—but even he's willing to admit that some common criticisms of the Union are more-or-less accurate. He freely admits that the Union didn't enter the Civil War to end slavery, that most "free states" in the 1860s were still appallingly racist by today's standards, and that George B. McClellan was just as bad a general as everyone says.
• Flowery Insults: Billy Yank tells Johnny Reb to bring out the "Big Guns":
  Johnny Reb: It's funny, when snot-nosed, green behind the ear, force fed warm bullshit college boys like yourself just regurgitate all the totally false narratives that you "learned". You sir are a syphilis-infested crotch goblin and deserve to be eaten alive by pygmy ants. God Save the South!
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the episode "Was GENERAL SHERMAN a WAR CRIMINAL?!?!?!?!," Johnny Reb and Billy Yank open by discussing possible topics (the "black Confederate" myth, Historical Hero Upgrade for Robert E. Lee, whether or not the South only lost because of the North's overwhelming resources) before settling on Sherman, almost all of which ended up being the subject of, or at least addressed in, future episodes. The only one that wasn't was the one Johnny Reb himself dismissed as too stupid even for a "cartoon character" like him to believe, namely, that Confederate slaves were happy and treated well.
  • In "Did the CONFEDERACY have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!", Johnny lists off some of the Confederacy's greatest generals, starting with obvious picks like Lee, Jackson and Forrest. Billy offers up James Longstreet, only for Johnny to say "We don't talk about him!" This foreshadows their discussion in "Is Civil War history being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!" when Billy describes how James Longstreet, despite being one of the Confederacy's best generals, was made an Unperson after the war for daring to support the integration and enfranchisement of slaves.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: In the episode "Klaus Resurrects the Army of the Confederate Dead", the confederate skeleton army have eerie, glowing red eyes (except for Jefferson Davis, who's more in a mummified state).
• Golden Mean Fallacy: In "Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!", Billy Yank points out that history isn't about giving equal amounts of attention to all viewpoints because some viewpoints can be biased or flat-out wrong, citing how what Johnny Reb says is the "Southern side" of Civil War history is literally just Lost Cause mythology with little to no basis in fact and shouldn't be considered as equally important or valid as legitimate historical consensus backed by evidence.
  Billy Yank: The Lost Cause isn't a valid point of view on anything; it's just a collection of factually incorrect claims. It's not a question of perspective or interpretation, this stuff is just demonstrably wrong.
• Hammy Herald: When Johnny Reb shifts the topic to Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest^note Who was also the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and was behind the Fort Pillow Massacre, he starts whooping and hollering and firing his colt pistol into the ceiling.
  Johnny: You know him, you love him, it's NNNNNATHAN! BEDFORD! FORREST! WOO! *BLAM* WOO! *BLAM* WOO! *BLAM* WOO! Woo!
• Hero-Worshipper: Deconstructed in the episode discussing the genetic lineage of the Lost Cause movement, "Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!" Billy points out that any actual qualities of the Confederate generals as men have long ago been buried under quasi-religious hero-worship, with the transparently self-serving motive of reworking history to cast the South as victims, the North as authoritarians crushing their liberties, and slavery as whatever it needs to be to maintain the previous two points in the context of the current Overton window of how acceptable open racism is.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: A core part of the series is how Lost Cause mythology has become ingrained in pop culture, and how that has dangerous real-world ramifications. Many of the main beliefs of the Lost Cause try to showcase the Confederacy as being better than it really was (or in extreme cases, some kind of egalitarian paradise), such as that most Confederates didn't own slaves, that Confederate leaders disapproved of slavery, that Blacks fought willingly in the Confederate army, etc. Of course, Billy Yank has the evidence to disprove all of these claims, and finds it trivially easy to source shockingly pro-slavery, racist and White Supremacist statements that even Johnny Reb abhors from the lowliest Confederate private to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis themselves.
  "[I will show the Yankees] that a white man is better than a n***r." —Jonas Bradshaw, 38th NC Infantry, 1862
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • On the flip side, Billy frequently makes it a main point of contention that the Lost Cause attempts to color the Union as evil, dictatorial big-government types who invaded and enacted something akin to Generalplan Ost on the helpless Confederacy. While the North was by no means the shining paragon of virtue that it is sometimes portrayed as in fiction (and Billy takes care to avoid characterizing it as such), it was definitely not worse than the side literally fighting to perpetuate slavery and enshrine it as a God-given right in the Constitution. Billy also repeatedly throughout the series points out instances where even with all the North's flaws, it did have people among its ranks who were remarkably progressive for their time period and managed to sway Northern public opinion almost entirely toward ending slavery even if that wasn't a goal at the war's start.
  • An entire episode is dedicated toward examining the Lost Cause's portrayal of William Tecumseh Sherman as a bloodthirsty war criminal who commanded his army of murderous thieves and rapists to wreak havoc across the South during his March to the Sea. Sherman was definitely an exceptionally ruthless general who was very cold and calculated in destroying the South's supplies and did a lot of terrible stuff, including after the war when he was put in charge of overseeing most of the ongoing wars against Native Americans during the U.S's westward expansion. However, Billy argues that Sherman's scorched-earth and foraging tactics were by no means atypical to line warfare in the 1800s (just look at The Napoleonic Wars) and he can't really be put on blast for the actions of every despicable Union redleg in the same way that war criminals who directly ordered the slaughter and plunder of civilians can (if anything, Sherman can be criticized for not keeping a better handle on his men as he believed the South got whatever came to them). Billy eventually concludes that while Sherman was definitely a morally gray figure in a lot of respects, his March to the Sea got the results that he wanted in ending the war quicker, even if there was a lot of needless violence.
• Homage: "Billy and Johnny at the movies" is an obvious one to Siskel & Ebert, being two guys with wildly differing opinions on a film seated across from one another discussing it.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In a series where he and Billy Yank regularly put away lots of alcohol, and usually pretty strong stuff, Johnny Reb accuses Ulysses S. Grant of being a drunk. They're even literally pouring out and toasting with liquor as they discuss the question of Grant's alcohol abuse.
  • Johnny Reb makes Billy Yank eat his words talking about the northerners who opposed the Indian Removal Act living in states with names like Massachusetts, which they basically stole from the Native Americans who had lived there for thousands of years.
    Johnny Reb: "Massachusetts", interesting name. Is that named after some place in England? Is there a quaint little village in Suffolk named "Massachusetts"?
• Large Ham: Johnny Reb can get a little overwhelmed with himself when thinking about a victorious South ("My heart FLUTTERS AT THE THOUGHT") or when he gives voice to a particularly unhinged commenter ("DAMN, DAMN YANKEES! REBEL YEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLL!")
• Literal Metaphor:
  • In "Did the CONFEDERACY Have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!" Johnny Reb appreciates Billy Yank's completely unprompted criticism of George McClellan, claiming his "timid and uncertain generalship" suggested he'd've made a hash of the war if he'd beaten Lincoln in the Presidential election, and smugly asks Billy Yank how his humble pie tastes. Cut to reveal a literal slice of pie Billy is eating.
    Billy Yank: It's a little dry.
  • When Johnny Reb accuses Billy Yank of conducting centuries-old military campaigns "From the comfort of [his] armchair", Billy gets confused and points out that his chair doesn't have any arms.
• Memetic Badass: In-Universe; discussed in Checkmate, Lincolnites! regarding William Tecumseh Sherman's presence in the online "Union Gang".^note A loose collection of online communities united in their fervent opposition to the Lost Cause movement. The omnipresence of Sherman memes is a frequent target of Johnny Reb's ire.
  Johnny Reb: [mockingly] "Do it again, Uncle Billy!" Spare me your memes, sir!
• Mundane Utility: In the Checkmate, Lincolnites! episode "TARIFFS and TAXES: The REAL Cause of the CIVIL WAR?!", Billy Yank uses a saber to open a bottle of whiskey.
• My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: When Johnny Reb tries to argue that the Southern states had the legal right to secede from the Union as guaranteed in Article X^note "It's Amendment X." of the Constitution, Billy Yank first says that it's a moot point because of Texas v. White, but whips out a pocket constitution to humor him. He then points out that the wording of the Tenth Amendment is an extremely broad rebuke of federal law and doesn't specifically say anything about secession. Johnny counters this by saying it's implied, since it's not an explicitly enumerate power, but Billy Yank runs with that logic and points to Article 6, Section 2, which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court several times as implying that Federal Law supersedes State law, meaning that something like unilateral secession after losing a presidential election fair and square would be super duper illegal.
• Musical Number Annoyance: Johnny Reb becomes very upset when Billy Yank starts singing "John Brown's Body", a Union marching song about militant abolitionist John Brown, who attempted to start a mass slave uprising with a raid on an armory at the town of Harper's Ferry.
  Billy: John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave, John Brown's body lies a moulderin' in the grave/John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave, but his SOUL GOES MARCHIN' ONNNN! GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH/GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH, GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH, BUT HIS SOUL GOES MARCHIN' ON!
  Johnny: You really don't have to give us a performance, Billy Yank...I must insist, that you stop that damn noise. Please shut up. Shut up. STOP SINGING! STOP THAT DAMN NOISE! GAH! OH, LORD HAVE MERCY! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! AGH! AAAAGH!
• Never My Fault: Discussed in the Checkmate, Lincolnites! episode "Did the CONFEDERACY Have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!", which examines the popular claim that the Confederate Army's leaders were universally superior tacticians compared to the Union Army's leaders, and the related claim that the Union only won because they had more abundant resources and manpower. Billy Yank argues that this claim is (at the very least) a gross oversimplification of historical fact, and suggests that it was partially propagated by Confederate generals who didn't want to take responsibility for their blunders in the campaigns of the war.
  "You know, it's interesting. Because with the very verbiage of [Robert E. Lee's farewell address], Lee abrogates his own personal responsibility for defeat. It was all just overwhelming numbers and resources—no other reason! Certainly not Confederate mismanagement, or the competency and skill of the United States Army. I mean no, no, no... That would be crazy!"
• Nobody Poops: Discussed in "Confederate Soldiers DIDN'T fight for SLAVERY! (Or did they?)". Billy Yank makes the point that Gods and Generals not only does such a bad job of portraying history, but also of representing humans as complex beings that watching Stonewall Jackson poop would be a more accurate representation of real life.
  Billy Yank: You know what I wanna see? I wanna see a movie where Stonewall Jackson sits on the toilet and takes a huge crap. That's humanity.
  Johnny Reb: How DARE YOU SPEAK OF THE GENERAL RELEASIN' HIS BOWELS!
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite the show being called Checkmate, Lincolnites!, which would imply it's about dunking on defenders of the Union (I.E. "Lincolnites"), it's actually about debunking common pro-Confederate myths. This is discussed at the beginning of "Did the CONFEDERACY Have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!" when Billy Yank inverts the usual opening dynamic with a snappy one-liner reply to one of Johnny's speeches and awkwardly attempts to introduce the show in Johnny's style as Checkmate, Davisites!, complete with fancy graphic. Johnny mocks him by pointing out it's not as catchy as his own catchphrase.
• Offscreen Inertia: Discussed and Played for Laughs in "Was it REALLY the WAR of NORTHERN AGGRESSION?!?!?!" Johnny Reb claims that the Confederate states weren't gearing up for war after seceding in 1861, apparently forgetting about all the raids they committed on government arsenals and garrisons during the immediate antebellum period.
  Billy Yank: Do you know what the seceding states were up to in the four months before Fort Sumter?
  Johnny Reb: Chillin'. Yearnin' for freedom from Yankee tyranny.
• Only Sane Man: Billy Yank holds up Joseph E. Johnston as the only Confederate general with a proper understanding of logistics and how to play the long game against a numerically and materially superior foe. But because his methods weren't very flashy, in spite of their effectiveness, he ended up being replaced by John Bell Hood^note "Who sucks by the way!", who quickly lost Atlanta to William T. Sherman before being utterly annihilated by General George Thomas at Nashville, taking an entire state out of the Confederacy and ending his career.
• Orwellian Retcon: Atun-Shei changed the title of "Confederate Soldiers DIDN'T fight for SLAVERY! (Or did they?)" to "Did Confederate Soldiers FIGHT for SLAVERY!?" to make it fall in line with the Driving Question Theme Naming of the other episodes, as well as altering how the show used to very clearly be controlled by Johnny Reb, who would presumably make the titles sound more biased in his favor.
• Outside Joke: In "Wasn't it KINDA about STATE'S RIGHTS!?!?!?!?!?", Johnny Reb out of nowhere asks Billy Yank if he's an Anarcho-Syndicalist. Billy has no idea what that is^note Anarcho-Syndicalism believes in achieving Anarchism through empowered labor unions, most famously seen in the Catalonia region during the Spanish Civil War, and says that he isn't.
• The Peter Principle: General George McClellan's military career (which has its own entry on that trope's page) is briefly but brutally discussed and dismissed. Billy even argues that his narrowly-averted election to President mid-war would've been even more of a disastrous elevation to an even higher level of incompetence.
  Johnny Reb: A fine administrator-
  Billy Yank: Not such a great field commander.
• The Power of Blood: The necromantic abilities of the Sword of Baron Samedi can only be activated with the blood of a true American patriot, which Klaus takes advantage of by killing a MAGAhead underling he brought with him to the Confederate cemetery in order to resurrect the Confederate leadership.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Billy Yank delivers a long-overdue one to Johnny Reb in "Is Civil War History Being REWRITTEN?!?!?!?!?!?" after Johnny Reb falls back on his old beliefs once again despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
  Billy Yank: God DAMN it, Johnny! You never give me the benefit of the doubt! Most people think you're a fuckin' racist scum of the earth cause you fly this fuckin' flag! You think I'm the bad guy? No! I'm coddling you, like the big fuckin' baby you are, trying to gently COAX you into the 21st century before the people behind me fucking DRAG you there! People think you are a FUCKING JOKE, Johnny! You've been discredited time and again, your monuments are coming down, your staunchest advocates are doddering old fools and pretty soon, they're gonna be in the fuckin' ground! Wha-what have we been doing all this time!? Have I been talking to a brick wall? JESUS!
• Self-Made Myth: Conspicuously inverted by General George Henry Thomas, a modest-to-a-fault Unionist Virginian whom Billy pegs as probably the single greatest general in the entire Civil War. General Thomas, known in his own time as "the Rock of Chickamauga," never lost a single movement, let alone battle, in the entire war, fetched up against "Stonewall" Jackson in the very first engagement of the war before the first Battle of Bull Run/Manasses even got started and sent him running, saved the Army of the Cumberland from complete destruction with a holding action at Chickamauga that earned him his nickname, and then annihilated John Bell Hood's Confederate army (Not Hyperbole) in a later engagement, taking an entire region out of the war. But because Thomas was by temperament a modest guy who hated the thought of history looking back at him, burning all his correspondence and refusing to write memoirs, and because he didn't like pushing for promotions even when he arguably deserved them and was subject to a lot of discrimination on both sides of the war, with the North looking down on him during the Civil War for his Southern origins and the South seeing him as a faithless traitor once the war ended, he's been kind of forgotten by history despite his impressive accomplishments.
• Shout-Out:
  • Klaus the Nazi possessing Johnny Reb and being exorcised by the Witchfinder-General in the Checkmate, Lincolnites! episode "Was It REALLY the WAR of NORTHERN AGGRESSION?!?!?!" is a parody of a similar scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
  • Most episodes of Checkmate Lincolnites! contain at least one quote or paraphrased quote from 1776.
  • In "Wasn’t it KINDA About STATES’ RIGHTS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!", when Billy is talking about the increasing centralization of the Confederate government, he suddenly starts waxing poetic about them forming the "first American slave empire" in a manner identical to the "First Galactic Empire" speech Palpatine gives to the Galactic Senate upon ascending to the throne of Emperor in Revenge of the Sith.
• Strategy Versus Tactics: In "Did the CONFEDERACY Have BETTER GENERALS?!?!?!", Billy Yank points out that many of the Confederacy's most famous victories were tactically impressive, but strategically pointless — as brilliant as their maneuvers may have been, they didn't actually do much to further the Confederacy's war aims besides temporarily defeating and driving off Union armies, and bled manpower and supplies they could scarce afford to lose. In contrast, Union commanders like Grant and Sherman didn't score nearly as many "epic" victories in battle (though, as Vicksburg shows, they had their fair share), but rather aimed at tearing out the Confederacy's logistical base at its roots, while grinding down the Confederacy one region at a time.
  Billy Yank: You thought small, we thought big. That's why we won.
• Strawman Has a Point: In-universe. Despite his arguments primarily consisting of Lost Cause canards that can be easily refuted with a bit of critical analysis of history, Johnny Reb occasionally does manage to hit the nail on the head about the hypocrisy or wrongdoing of the North, such as when he correctly pointed out that while the Northern states were pearl-clutching about the crisis that led to the Missouri Compromise being a "Southern Evil," there were still a great deal of slaves in the North due to most of their states adopting a very slow and gradual abolition process. Of course, he also often treats these like "Gotcha" arguments that entirely refute Billy Yank's rhetoric and is often flabbergasted when Billy concedes the point to him, meaning it's more Downplayed than other examples of this trope.
• Strawman Political: Downplayed with Johnny Reb. It's clear that he doesn't believe that slavery was good (unlike his predecessor the Cavalry Officer, who mocked Atun-Shei for thinking slavery is wrong) or think that other races are inferior (except when possessed by Klaus the Nazi), and he does what he does because he genuinely loves his heritage. At the same time, though, he spreads harmful misinformation and clings to outdated historiography because it's the only way for him to feel guilt-free in the process, and as such he's hostile toward Billy Yank for shattering his comfortable view of the past. In several instances it's clear that he prefers talking about Confederate military history to why the Confederacy existed in the first place because it's less morally dubious.
  Johnny Reb: I'm a cartoon character, not an idiot.
• Suddenly Sober: After becoming super drunk by drinking spiked coffee in "Were There Really BLACK CONFEDERATES???!!!", all it takes for Johnny Reb to sober up again is a little splash of water in the face, courtesy of Billy Yank.
• Take That, Audience!: Billy Yank and Johnny Reb take some of the more extreme members of the channel's audience to task in "Was GENERAL SHERMAN a WAR CRIMINAL?!?!?!?!", showing comments of people painting all modern-day Southerners as if they were Confederates.
  Billy Yank: What kind of unbelievable asshole can't distinguish between slave-owning Confederates and modern-day rural Southerners?
  [both take a long, skeptical look at the camera]
• Technicolor Blade: The Sword of Baron Samedi is a Suave Sabre which has a blade that glows a bright, undeathly purple.
• Title Drop: Once an Episode in Checkmate, Lincolnites! At the beginning of each episode, Johnny Reb will state a common Lost Cause argument, and when Billy Yank is naturally unable to condense a rebuttal into a 2-second sound bite, Johnny will turn to the camera and proudly proclaim CHECKMATE, LINCOLNITES! while the intro theme plays.
  Johnny Reb [after delivering another bogus argument]: Checkmate, Lincolnites. That's the name of the program.
• Troll:
  • Johnny Reb (and the unnamed Confederate cavalry officer that preceded him, if they're not the same character) clearly tries to get into Atun-Shei/Billy Yank's skin, even if they're reading YouTube comments. "LOL, look at this soy boy!" indeed.
  • Then there was the time in "Were there really BLACK CONFEDERATES?" when Johnny made the outrageous statement that slaves deeply desired and volunteered to serve their masters in the fight against the North, and were only relegated to camp servant positions when there weren't enough supplies and rifles to arm them:
    Billy Yank: ...Now you're just making shit up, aren't you?
    Johnny Reb: ...Yeah, you got me!
    Billy Yank: Ayyyy!
  • For his part, Atun-Shei/Billy Yank for the most part limits himself to just debunking the myths Johnny Reb/the Confederate cavalry officer espouses, but he can also set him off for fun if he want to.
    Johnny Reb: ...like the brave boys at Fredericksburg...
    Atun-Shei/Billy Yank: Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!^note Union soldiers chanted this during Pickett's Charge, a disastrous defeat for the Confederacy.
    [Johnny Reb angrily fumes]
    Atun-Shei/Billy Yank: Oh, sorry. Too soon, I guess.
• Un-person: Billy Yank points out to Johnny Reb that, although James Longstreet was one of the Confederacy's most able commanders and led the Confederate Army to multiple victories, there are practically no monuments to him in the South or elsewhere, and he's virtually absent from the post-war hagiography of Confederate leaders like Lee, Jackson, or Early. Billy attributes this to Longstreet's defense of reintegration with the Union and, crucially, to his support of Black civil rights in the Reconstruction era — he even led city defense forces against a white supremacist mob at the Battle of Liberty Place. This further led to Jubal Early slandering Longstreet's reputation after the fact and hanging responsibility for the defeat at Gettysburg on him once Lee was too good and dead to say otherwise, to a Southern audience primed to believe him and disbelieve Longstreet's confused and incoherent attempts to defend himself. Billy cites this as evidence that Confederate monuments are really about white supremacy and whitewashing historical realities, rather than honoring the dead or memorializing important history and people as their defenders often claim.
  Johnny Reb: Never before, in the aaalll the annals of military history, were there a finer collection of officers at war than those of the Confederate States Army! Lee, Jackson, Forrest...
  Billy Yank: Longstreet?
  Johnny Reb: We don't talk about him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: No matter how much they go neck-and-neck on the debate floor, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank are clearly good friends. In "Was it REALLY the WAR of NORTHERN AGGRESSION?!?!?!", after Johnny is exorcised of Klaus the Nazi's control, even though he goes right back to prattling about Lost Cause mythology again, Billy is clearly glad he's alright. In the Christmas Episode, they even exchange gifts and play a friendly game of Chess.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: invoked Parodied in "Billy and Johnny at the Movies". As Billy points out, Johnny being shocked that the unrated indie movie which wasn't widely released in theaters he brought his son to see has a graphic scene of a man ejaculating onto a Satanist witching stone doesn't seem like a realistic complaint, and his son is 16 years old, meaning he's likely seen far worse on the internet already.
• Wolverine Publicity: "Billy and Johnny at the Movies" is an unashamedly transparent attempt at this, taking advantage of Checkmate, Lincolnites!'s larger audience compared to the rest of the Atun-Shei Films channel in order to shill Andrew Rakich's film The Sudbury Devil to more people using the Billy Yank and Johnny Reb characters.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: When discussing the Union and Confedracy's differing interpretations of Strategy Versus Tactics, Billy Yank makes a point that while the North did have a good number of tactically-minded generals who planned similarly to Southern powerhouses like Lee and Jackson, they were also much more adaptive and flexible in their planning to be able to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances on the battlefield (especially in the case of George Henry Thomas) whereas the Confederates were more rigid in the execution of their maneuvers, putting them at a disadvantage if something went wrong.

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