America's Inner Struggle
Whether you call it the Civil War or the War Between the States, the War of Northern Aggression, or the Great Rebellion, the conflict that ravaged America in the 1860s is a story that touches nearly everyone. Once the political historians have analyzed the causes and the military historians have charted the battles, we are left with the startling fact that America lost more lives in this conflict than in any other war. Families were torn apart, and a generation of young men were lost. We can never tire of the stories of these people, for the dead were our grandfathers, uncles, and neighbors. The mourners were our grandmothers, our mothers, and our sisters.
A doctor closed his medical practice to command a Union regiment; then he exchanged his bayonet for a scalpel to try to save the lives of soldiers he had just led into battle. A Confederate soldier wrote home to request a white linen tablecloth to dress up his dining facilities; his mother responded by sending him orange blossoms to keep his clothes sweet-smelling. Life-long friends and comrades found themselves on opposite sides of the war. Union missionaries tried to teach slave women to play the harpsichord and dance the minuet, while army officers tried to turn the male slaves into soldiers by providing them with bright red uniforms. A battered wife signed on as a regimental nurse because the experience of war could not possibly be worse than the life she had been living. A sergeant who wished for a “scratch with the rebels” had no idea that his first encounter with the enemy would leave him legless and bleeding to death, his body dumped into an unmarked mass grave. These are some of the people I want you to meet.
