(1861)

THE War between the States in 1861 was one of the most terrible conflicts known to modern times.

Many causes led up to it, chief among which was a difference in the interpretation of the Constitution by the people of the North and of the South. The slavery question was also a point of dispute; and several minor causes brought about a dissension in the two sections that resulted in the gigantic struggle of friend against friend, brother against brother, father against son.

The early engagements of the contending forces were ones of signal victory to the South. The disunion of the nation was so seriously threatened as to bring grave concern to the Federal government. As the weeks and months wore away, victory perched above the banner of the Federals, and the climax was reached in the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, after four years of deadly strife.

Both sides fought valiantly. Both won; in that the glory of the Republic was to stand henceforth supreme among foreign nations, the greatness of the combatants to receive a recognition never to be effaced.

Through a perspective of fifty years of peace, the heroism displayed on either field by those engaged therein is, to the most partisan observer, silhouetted upon the mental vision in glowing lines of light. Justly we term it “Our most Heroic Period.”

Not the least remarkable of this aftermath, transcending all experiences of other nations, is the brotherhood, the kindly feeling of sympathy and understanding, that after the passage of but half a century now binds the once warring sections in indissoluble bonds of unity.