my, we have some sweeping revisions of history today.
Lee was no coward. Going guerilla is a decision for one man, not a leader of men. By surrendering, he got rations for his men, and they got to keep their horses. The war was over, and everyone knew it. During the Mexican war, Lee served under Scott and was instrumental in the Battle of Cerro Gordo; he was the one who found a way around the Mexican position. At Chapultepec, he was the one who found a path through the lava beds at the Pedregal and he was wounded during the storming of the fort there. Hardly the actions of a coward.
Lincoln was indeed a mild racist, as has been long known to historians. However, he did NOT think that blacks were necessarily inferior, just that they couldn't live side by side with whites. He wanted to free them and send them back to Africa at first... eventually, he settled for simply wanting to free them. In his youth, he made a riverboat trip to New Orleans, where he was appalled at the sight of blacks in chains being herded by slave drivers. This affected him deeply, and he soon gained a desire to end slavery. His hope was that it would die off on its own and the blacks could be shipped back to Africa. The ACW forced him to change a lot of his views....