His Sombre Rivals

Excerpt

The following story has been taking form in my mind for several years,
and at last I have been able to write it out.  With a regret akin to
sadness, I take my leave, this August day, of people who have become
very real to me, whose joys and sorrows I have made my own.  Although a
Northern man, I think my Southern readers will feel that I have sought
to do justice to their motives.  At this distance from the late Civil
War, it is time that passion and prejudice sank below the horizon, and
among the surviving soldiers who were arrayed against each other I
think they have practically disappeared.  Stern and prolonged conflict
taught mutual respect.  The men of the Northern armies were convinced,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they had fought men and Americans—­
men whose patriotism and devotion to a cause sacred to them was as
pure and lofty as their own.  It is time that sane men and women should
be large-minded enough to recognize that, whatever may have been the
original motives of political leaders, the people on both sides were
sincere and honest; that around the camp-fires at their hearths and in
their places of worship they looked for God’s blessing on their
efforts with equal freedom from hypocrisy.