It was easy and natural during the heat of 1861 to characterise as
traitors the men who went with their States to fight against the flag of
their country. Looking at the matter now, forty-seven years later, we
are better able to estimate the character and the integrity of the
motives by which they were actuated. We do not need to-day to use the
term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all unnatural
that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
they had been born, and with their belief that these States had a right
to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
and with Farragut.
V
THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the actual
beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
opening of hostilities.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82