The Days of a Man 



1912 



Results 

 of the 

 Civil War 



Sherman 



Summing 

 up 



The Civil War was followed by the extinction of 

 slavery, the maintenance of democracy, and the 

 spread of the free-school system of the Union through- 

 out the rural districts of the South. That all these 

 results were most desirable, even vital to the exten- 

 sion of civilization in the New World, none may now 

 deny. But one may hesitate to ascribe any of them 

 directly to the war, for sooner or later they were in- 

 evitable. The exhaustion of the South of course 

 opened the way, yet their final permanent establish- 

 ment is due to their inherent righteousness. 



On May 21, 1865, General William T. Sherman, 

 one of the most successful soldiers of the nineteenth 

 century, wrote to James L. Yeatman: 



I confess without shame that I am tired and sick of war. Its 

 glory is all moonshine. Even success the most brilliant is over 

 dead and mangled bodies, the anguish and lamentations of 

 distant families appealing to me for missing sons, husbands, and 

 fathers. It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor the 

 shrieks and groans of the wounded, friend or foe, who cry aloud 

 for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. 



The following words of General Anderson fitly 

 sum up the whole matter: 



The South is the better by far for the spread of education, the 

 willingness to work, the loss of slavery, the maintenance of the 

 Union, and the development of business. But for war as war, 

 there is no redeeming feature, no benefit to any one, not one word 

 to be said. 



C 44 



