Naemanson: I was not reacting specifically to you but I appreciate your reminding me of what you said.

Banjer: We all suffer from the problem of trying to give cause to major events. It seems as though the only way we can talk about big issues is to oversimplify. If you have ever pondered over "War and Peace", that is much what the novel is about, trying to figure out why there are wars, why people are willing to fight, to follow a charismatic leader, to fight for a homeland.

Wars which involve millions of people contain almost as many motives. You wrote, "The original cause of the Civil War was not slavery". You can make that argument but you have to admit that other reasonable people can make a counter argument. From the early nineteenth century to the present, slavery has been the cause of a great running sore in the American body. Newspaper editors were beaten, political careers were truncated, the Amistad, the Dred Scott decision, compromises in the Senate reached only after Senators got into fights including beating one lawmaker with a walking stick on the Senate floor, public bravery and private cowardice all were a part of how America dealt with the issue. SOme ministers went to jail for their abiolitionist beliefs. Others figured out how the Bible supported slavery, giving it a moral basis. Slavery was a major issue in the nation. If you read the newspapers of the time, you can see that slavery was considered by many to be a moral issue. Others saw it as an economic issue, others a States Rights issue but it was an issue that everyone at the time had an opinion about.

Was it the original cause? I can understand your saying it was not but what does that mean? The Union soldiers who went out to fight may have been searching for what the fFrench Army calls "La Gloire" , at least early in the war. However, even those felt their personal lives were somehow enriched by the fact hat they were fighting slavery. Certainly, many of those Union soldiers who were wounded and spent the rest of their lives in shattered bodies believed that they had been involved in a great crusade of liberation. You can see it in songs like "We are coming Father Abraham" and Battle Hymn of the Republic". For the fifty or more years following the war, The Grand Army of the Republic, made up of Union veterans took pride in their role of ending slavery in the US.

I think people get it wrong when they say that Lincoln was not against slavery. I think it is clear that he found it distasteful. What he said was something to the effect that he felt that the Union was more important than the issue of slavery. He could accept slavery if he had to if it meant that the union would be indivisible. That is not the same as saying he did not care.

I did not mean to go on so long about this. My major interest is in the Hunley expedition and don't mean to drone on so. Excuse me, please.

Longwinded but now winded Sourdough