Recall, of course, that when the Army of the Potomac was winning it’s victory at Gettysburg, and Grant’s Army was winning the seige of Vicksburg, there were draft riots in NYC.
But the Union soldiers, by and large, understood the honorable nature and behavior of their Confederate opponants. General Chamberlain, a Maine college professor and abolitionist, calling the AotP to Carry Arms as the ANV paraded past to stack arms and lay down their colors, got the sentiment exactly right. If only today’s Progressives could follow his example.
And I say that as a descendent of Pennsylvania abolitionists who had relatives spread out across various PA Civil War units.
I love both sides of this conflict. It disgusts me that there are people who want to destroy the memory of all those boys who died so honorably - on both sides. Shame on all of them. They have no understanding of history. And no mercy.