All citizens of the Confederacy and the Union lost when the South was conquered and coerced to join an unholy alliance with the United States. For it meant the defeat of the real Constitution. Some Southerners still care enough to remember what was lost, that we are second-class citizens because we are forced citizens, and the fact that we live at all is a constant source of frustration for these Reformers. I will let a few of the Yankees tell you how they viewed the war, and Southerners, in their own words. They do it so much better than I!
 

Professor Jay Hoar of Maine wrote this of the result of the war: "The worst fears of those Boys in Gray are now a fact of American life - a Federal government completely out of control."  

Claude G. Bowers wrote this observation: "That the Southern people were literally put to the torture is vaguely understood, but even historians have shrunk from the unhappy task of showing us the torture chambers."
   

   Thaddeus Stephens modestly put the Northern philosophy this way: "Hang the leaders - crush the South - arm the Negroes - confiscate the land - Our generals have a sword in one hand and shackles in the other - the South must be punished under the rules of war, its' land confiscated. These offending States were out of the Union and in the role of a belligerent nation to be dealt with by the laws of war and conquest." (A militant Yankee admitting that we were a nation! Swords or shackles, death or enslavement, the choices for the South.)
 

Edward A. Pollard wrote: "New England, which had been too conscientious to defend the national honor in the war with Great Britain, poured out almost her whole population to aid in the extermination of a people."
 

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "If it costs ten years, and ten to recover the general prosperity, the destruction of the South is worth so much."
 

The following are taken from the Official Records of the War of Rebellion in Washington, D. C. :

"There can be no peace but that which is forced by the sword. We must conquer the rebels." Henry W. Halleck, General in Chief,U. S.
 

"Rebellion has assumed that shape now that it can only terminate by the complete subjugation of the South. It is our duty to weaken the enemy by destroying their means of cultivating their fields, and in every other way possible." U. S. Grant, General U. S. (This act meant starvation for all the People, men, women and children, black and white. Starvation was a favourite weapon.)
 

General W. T. Sherman clearly reflected the Northern philosophy this way: "The Government of the United States has any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war - to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything...war is simply power unrestrained by constitution". "To the persistent secessionist, why, death is a mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better". "There is a class of Southern men, women, and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order". "Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its' roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources". "I am satisfied that the problem of this war consists in the fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory - a great deal of it yet remains to be done. Therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results." (I think you will find the modern word is Genocide!)
 

Philip Sheridan wrote: "Guerrilla parties are becoming very formidable I know of no way to exterminate them except to burn out the whole country."
 

  As for the kindly and benevolent Mr. Lincoln, when he heard of such atrocities, his course of action was to reward the perpetrators and encourage them to even greater acts of barbarism! As he rewarded Major Anderson for his part in provoking the war at Ft. Sumter.I spoke of the "Great Man" earlier. Yes, he wrote some nice speeches, words are cheap to some, but his actions put the lie to his words. In Southern eyes you may as well put heroes laurels on Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler as to venerate this man.