Excerpt from The Great Civil War, Vol. 1: A History of the Late Rebellion With Biographical Sketches of Leading Statesmen and Distinguished Naval and Military Commanders, Etc The late Civil War marks an epoch in the world's history. It constitutes a landmark in the onward and upward march of human freedom and enlightened civilization. Every war has its dark side as well as its bright. Happily, how ever, the dark side is now but little contemplated it is the bright side which commands attention. Begotten of conflicting Violent and irreconcilable causes, most of them human in their origin, but few of them under human control, the war was perhaps inevitable but if it brought sorrow in its train, it was yet so overruled and guided by an all-wise Providence that it resulted in good, not to the slave alone, who was immediately benefitted, not to the United States alone, which by means of it were placed in the front rank of the nations, but to all nations and to all men. It has been the aim of the authors to make this history full, fair, and impartial - a history to be read and appreciated equally by the men of the South and the men of the North; and they feel confident that the unprejudiced reader will award them the praise of having carried out their pur pose, if not with absolute satisfaction to all, at least in such a manner as to show that, while in quest of truth, they were not unduly biased to the one side or the other. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.