Like Most Rebel Soldiers, Sam Watkins Owned

History Does Not Usually Make Real Sense Until Long Afterward.

Abraham Lincoln Was Not All Brooding And Melancholy And Patient Understanding. There Was A Hard Core In Him, And Plenty Of Toughness. He Could Recognize A Revolutionary Situation When He Saw One, And He Could Act Fast And Ruthlessly To Meet It.

Men See Things Late, And It May Be That At Times An Evil Fate Drives Them On.

Beneath Everything Else, North And West, There Ran A Profound, Unvoiced, Almost Subconscious Conviction That The [american] Nation Was Going To Go On Growing-in Size, In Power, In Everything A Man Could Think Of-and In That Belief There Was A Might And A Fury That Would Take Form Instantly At The Moment Of Shock.

The Enduring Realization That When A Great Challenge Comes, The Most Ordinary People Can Show That They Value Something More Than They Value Their Own Lives. When The Last Of The Veterans Had Gone, And The Sorrows And Bitterness Which The War Created Had At Last Worn Away, This Memory Remained.