General George H. Thomas, a Critical Biography (Classic Reprint)

There is probably no political disturbance culminating in an armed conflict so little known to the world as this of ours that from 1861 to 1864 convulsed the people of a continent. Not only is its origin lost in obscurity, but the actual events are so distorted that instead of history they make a romance far more improbable than fictions evolved from the brain of novelists and poets. To get at the reason for this extraordinary condition, we have to remember that war in its larger meaning was unknown to us when this fearful one broke upon us. For two hundred years we had been engaged in the conquest of a continent, reclaiming it from the dominion of nature, and so earnest and industrious had we been that we were lost to all else. The conflict of arms that won us our independence was in truth a war between England andF rance, in which the thirteen colonies did little but exhibit an indomitable will, animated by the loftiest patriotism. We could have fought England singlehanded and alone if need were, and probably would have been conquered, but France, for selfish purposes of its own, did the fighting for us. The infamous invasion of a sister republic, known as theM exican war, was a small affair and ended ere our people could learn aught of arms. Immersed in labor, trade, politics, and speculation, we were suddenly called on to consider the exigencies of actual war upon the largest scale. To the masses it was novel in the beginning and quite unknown in the end.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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