The events of the war you can discuss freely, but you
are hardly at liberty to denounce Southern soldiers or officers, or
accuse them of "rebellion," or to assume that they fought for base
or wicked motives. Moreover, in a certain sense, all Southerners are
still "unrepentant rebels." Doubtless, in view of the result, they
will acknowledge that the war was a gigantic mistake; but I found
that if I sought for an admission that, if it was all to do over
again, they would not fight, I was touching on a very tender point,
and I was gently but firmly repelled. The reason is plain enough. In
confessing this, they would, they think, be confessing that their
sons and brothers and fathers had perished miserably in a causeless
struggle on which they ought never to have entered, and this, of
course, would look like a slur on their memory, and their memory is
still, after the lapse of twelve years, very sacred and very dear. I
doubt if many people at the North have an adequate notion of the
intensity of the emotions with which Southerners look back on the
war; and I mean tender and not revengeful or malignant emotions.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209