her off the rocks.

It is likely, however, that the Civil War was one of those things that
had to be; that it was a means used by destiny to shape our ends; that
it was needed to bring out those fine traits of National character
which, up to that time, were not known to exist. Southern blood was hot
and Northern blood was cold. Though citizens of one country, the people
of the North and the people of the South were separated by a wide gulf
in their interests and in their feelings. Doubt had been freely thrown
upon the courage of the men who lived north of Mason and Dixon's line.
The haughty slave owners and slave dealers affected to believe, many of
them did believe, that one southern man could whip five "yankees." It
took four years of war to teach them a different lesson.

It was the old story of highland and lowland feud, of the white rose and
the red rose, of roundhead and cavalier, of foemen worthy of each
other's steel fighting to weld "discordant and belligerent elements"
into a homogeneous whole.

But war is not always an unmixed evil. Sometimes it is a positive good,
and the Nation emerged from its great struggle more united than ever.
The sections had learned to respect each other's prowess and to know
each other's virtues. The cement that bound the union of states was no
longer like wax to be melted by the fervent heat of political strifes.
It had been tested and tempered in the fiery furnace of civil war. The
history of that war often has been written. Much has been written that
is not history. But whether fact or fiction, the story is read with
undiminished interest as the years rush by.

One story there is that has not been told, at least not all of it; nor
will it be until the last of those who took part in that great drama
shall have gone over to the silent majority. It is the story of the
individual experiences of the men who stood in the ranks, or of the
officers who held no high rank; who knew little of plans and strategy,
but bore their part of the burden and obeyed orders. There was no army,
no corps, no division, brigade, or regiment, scarcely a battery, troop,
or company, which went through that struggle, or a soldier who served in
the field "for three years or during the war," whose experiences did not
differ from any other, whose history would not contain many features
peculiar to itself or himself. Two regiments in the same command, two
soldiers in the same regiment, might get entirely dif