"...in the wake of the assasination, editors, generals and public officialsacross the South voiced the opinion that the region had lost its best friend.Indignation meetings, so-called, were convened in many places. Lincoln stoodfor peace, mercy, and forgiveness. His loss, therefore, was a calamity for thedefeated states. This opinion was sometimes ascribed to Jefferson Davis, eventhough he stood accused of complicity in the assasination....He [Davis] readthe telegram [bringing news of Lincoln's death] and when it brought an exultantshout raised his hand to check the demonstration..."He had power over the Northern people," Davis wrote in his memoir of the war," and was without malignity to the southern people."...Alone of the southern apologists,[Alexander] Stephens held Lincoln in high regard. "The Union with him insentiment," said the Georgian, "rose to the sublimnity of religious mysticism...in 1873 "Little Elick" Stephens, who again represented his Georgia district in Congress, praised Lincoln for his wisdom, kindness and generosityin a well-publicized speech seconding the acceptance of the gift of Francis B. Carpenter's famous painting of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation."...[in 1880] a young law student at the University of Virginia,Thomas Woodrow Wilson, speaking for the southern generation that grew tomaturity after the war, declared, "I yield to no one precedence in love of theSouth. But because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy"
...the leading propenent of that creed was Henry W. Grady, editorof the Atlanta Constitution. In 1886 Grady, thirty-six years old, was invitedto address the New England Society of New York, on the 266th anniversary to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. General Sherman, seated on the platform,was an honored guest, and the band played [I am not making this up] "Marching Through Georgia" before Grady was introduced. Pronouncing the death of the OldSouth, he lauded the New South of Union and freedom and progress. And he offered Lincoln as the vibrant symbol not alone of reconciliation but ofAmerican character. "Lincoln," he said, "comprehended within himself all thestrength, and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of the republic." He was indeed, the first American, "the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, in whose ardentnature were fused the virtues of both, and in whose great soul the faults ofboth were lost."
--From "Lincoln in American Memory" by Merrill D. Peterson P. 46-48
Walt