{"id":"01KG8AKA6JP6ZNKQH72VJ429TP","cid":"bafkreifd37ekhvouav74mkpksugx2b7goarv6nzo2uvu32mz47mmnmt4re","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5423,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:58.829Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1G8S4TRWXNCBRKCRKS8","start_line":5380,"text":"Cherishing such sentiments, it will hardly occasion surprise that, in\r\nlooking over the battle-pieces in the foregoing collection, I have been\r\ntempted to withdraw or modify some of them, fearful lest in presenting,\r\nthough but dramatically and by way of a poetic record, the passions and\r\nepithets of civil war, I might be contributing to a bitterness which\r\nevery sensible American must wish at an end. So, too, with the emotion\r\nof victory as reproduced on some pages, and particularly toward the\r\nclose. It should not be construed into an exultation misapplied--an\r\nexultation as ungenerous as unwise, and made to minister, however\r\nindirectly, to that kind of censoriousness too apt to be produced in\r\ncertain natures by success after trying reverses. Zeal is not of\r\nnecessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry\r\nor patriotism.\r\n\r\nThere were excesses which marked the conflict, most of which are perhaps\r\ninseparable from a civil strife so intense and prolonged, and involving\r\nwarfare in some border countries new and imperfectly civilized.\r\nBarbarities also there were, for which the Southern people collectively\r\ncan hardly be held responsible, though perpetrated by ruffians in their\r\nname. But surely other qualities--exalted ones--courage and fortitude\r\nmatchless, were likewise displayed, and largely; and justly may these be\r\nheld the characteristic traits, and not the former.\r\n\r\nIn this view, what Northern writer, however patriotic, but must revolt\r\nfrom acting on paper a part any way akin to that of the live dog to the\r\ndead lion; and yet it is right to rejoice for our triumph, so far as it\r\nmay justly imply an advance for our whole country and for humanity.\r\n\r\nLet it be held no reproach to any one that he pleads for reasonable\r\nconsideration for our late enemies, now stricken down and unavoidably\r\ndebarred, for the time, from speaking through authorized agencies for\r\nthemselves. Nothing has been urged here in the foolish hope of\r\nconciliating those men--few in number, we trust--who have resolved never\r\nto be reconciled to the Union. On such hearts every thing is thrown away\r\nexcept it be religious commiseration, and the sincerest. Yet let them\r\ncall to mind that unhappy Secessionist, not a military man, who with\r\nimpious alacrity fired the first shot of the Civil War at Sumter, and a\r\nlittle more than four years afterward fired the last one into his own\r\nheart at Richmond.\r\n\r\nNoble was the gesture into which patriotic passion surprised the people\r\nin a utilitarian time and country; yet the glory of the war falls short\r\nof its pathos--a pathos which now at last ought to disarm all animosity.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJS22SQ9XB07EMSJ5NFC7","peer_type":"frontmatter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1G8S4TRWXNCBRKCRKS8","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKARYARC85E3G1CQ5C0GW","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:00.210Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:03.253Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}