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    The Civil War: Voices of Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage
    The Civil War: Voices of Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage
    The Civil War: Voices of Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage
    Ebook127 pages1 hour

    The Civil War: Voices of Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage

    By Gordon Leidner

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    "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves...."—President Abraham Lincoln

    The third title in Gordon Leidner's successful series, The Civil War: Quotes, Quips, And Speeches captures the essence of this bloody and inevitable conflict through the insights, inspirations, and wisdoms of those who lived it. Featuring more than 220 quotes from both Union and Confederate soldiers and civilians, as well as excerpts from some of our country's most enduring speeches, The Civil War documents the chronology of one of the ultimate turning points in American history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateMay 1, 2014
    ISBN9781402292668
    The Civil War: Voices of Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage
    Author

    Gordon Leidner

    GORDON LEIDNER is a board member of the Abraham Lincoln Institute, and he maintains the website GreatAmericanHistory.net, where he provides free educational material to students and educators on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and the American Revolution.

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      Book preview

      The Civil War - Gordon Leidner

      Copyright © 2014 by Gordon Leidner

      Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

      Cover image by Alexander Gardner, 1862, courtesy of the Civil War Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

      Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

      Photos courtesy of the Library of Congress.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

      This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. —From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

      Published by Cumberland House, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

      P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

      (630) 961-3900

      Fax: (630) 961-2168

      www.sourcebooks.com

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

      Dedicated to my great-grandfather:

      Private Philip Heinrich Leidner, Company A,

      5th Missouri Regiment, USRC

      Veteran of the American Civil War

      Contents

      Preface

      Introduction to the Civil War

      1   Distant Drums

      2   Call to Arms

      3   A Resolve to Win

      4   Character

      5   War Is Hell

      6   Facing the Inevitable

      7   We Are All Americans

      Excerpts from Jefferson Davis’s Inaugural Address

      Excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address

      The Gettysburg Address: Abraham Lincoln

      Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

      Grant’s Terms of Surrender to Lee at Appomattox

      Farewell Address: General Robert E. Lee

      Endnotes

      About the Editor

      The struggle of today, is not altogether for today—it is for a vast future also.¹

      —Abraham Lincoln

      Preface

      There is no saga of American history that contains more stories of hope, courage, resolve, love, and sacrifice than the American Civil War. The Civil War: Voices of Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage tells the story of this great conflict through the words of the men and women who experienced it firsthand. Within are quotations from presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, which provide insight into the reasons for the war. The words of military leaders such as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, and William Tecumseh Sherman demonstrate not only military acumen, but also a thorough understanding of human nature. Excerpts from the diaries of women such as Mary Boykin Chesnut and Sarah Morgan Dawson tell of the civilians’ hardships in war. Stories of wounded soldiers are recounted by nurses such as Clara Barton and Louisa May Alcott, revealing the heroism of both the teller and the reteller. Abolitionists such as John Brown and Henry Ward Beecher attack the injustice of slavery, while slave owners like William Lowndes Yancey and Edmund Ruffin defend it. Personal stories from former slaves such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman provide insight into the meaning of freedom, while soldiers of all ranks, Union and Confederate, convey both the horror and grandeur of war.

      The Civil War abounds with some of the most enduring speeches of American history. The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, and Lee’s Farewell are among those included at the end of the book.

      Each chapter begins with a short introduction that provides some context for the quotes that follow. To improve the quotes’ readability, minor changes were occasionally made to correct capitalization, spelling, and punctuation errors. A sincere effort was made to ensure that the quotes are historically accurate, as evidenced by the endnotes in the back of the book.

      Rather than attempting to trace the progress of a soldier’s rank through the war, officers are usually referred to by their highest rank attained. Instead of trying to differentiate between Brigadier, Major, and Lieutenant General, all men of general rank are referred to as simply General.

      For the most part, the quotes are presented in a chronological manner. The primary purpose, however, was to arrange the quotes topically, so succeeding chapters will occasionally have a few quotes that occurred earlier in the war.

      I trust that the reader will find these quotes inspirational as well as informative. I agree with many others that one cannot fully understand the United States of America today without understanding the experiences of Americans during our nation’s most devastating war.

      —Gordon Leidner

      Introduction to the Civil War

      Most twenty-first-century readers are amazed that it required a horrendous war, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans, to put an end to an institution as reprehensible as slavery. It becomes even more amazing when one realizes that the majority of the Americans who fought in the Civil War did not join the army in order to either explicitly defend or eliminate slavery.

      To most Southerners, the war was about preserving their way of life rather than preserving slavery. The majority of the Southern people had grown to accept slavery as fundamental to the South’s economic survival, and their consciences had been eased regarding the peculiar institution by not only their political leaders, but also their religious leaders. Preachers in the South, and sometimes in the North too, had extolled passages of the Bible supporting slavery. These religious leaders didn’t bother with clarifying details such as the fact that a slave in the Bible would have been more accurately described as a bond servant in the nineteenth century. Whereas bond servants were often skilled workers who had rights such as the ability to buy their freedom, the Southern slaves had no rights and were typically slaves for life.

      It was a comparative minority of Southerners, namely the slave-owning planter class, who had an overriding interest in propagating the institution of slavery. This minority had an enormous influence on the rest of their society and convinced the majority of Southerners that any threat to slavery was a threat

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