"Any understanding of this nation has to be based,
and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that
firmly. (It) defined us. The Civil War defined us as what we are, and it
opened us up to what we became, the good and bad things. It was the crossroads of
our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads: the suffering, the enormous suffering of the
whole thing."
Civil War historian and author, Shelby Foote |