The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864, page 19 by Various Authors
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rson Davis, and not General Grant or General Lee, we have firm faith that this awful struggle is no brute fight of beasts or ruffians, but a grand world's war of heroes. We believe He will justify His government in the end, and make this struggle praise Him, in the blessed days that are to come. But we leave all those dim results unguessed at, as we leave the purposes of the war itself unmentioned, and the ends which justify us in fighting on. Men, by this time, have made up their minds, once for all, on these last points. The nation has chosen, and in its own conscience, let others think as they may, accepts the responsibility cheerfully.
It is enough to indicate, as we have done, some real, though immaterial, results already attained, results which, to the philosopher or thoughtful statesman, are worth a very large outlay. They do not, indeed, remove the horror of war, they do not ask us not to seek peace, they do not dry the tears, or hide the blood of the contest, but they do show us that war is no unmixed evil, that even honest, faithful war-work is acceptable work, and will be paid for.
They declare that, after all, war is a means of moral training, that 'Carnage' may be, as the gentlest of poets wrote, 'God's daughter,' that battles may be blessings to be thankful for in the long march of time. They bring to our consciousness, once more, the fact that a Great Battle, amid all its horror, wrath, and blood, is something sacred still, an earthly shadow of that Unseen Battle which has stormed through time, between the hosts of Light and Darkness. They declare again, to the nation, that old truth, without which the nation perishes and man rots, that to die in some good cause is the noblest thing a man can do on earth. They bid us bend in hope beneath the awful hand of the GOD OF BATTLES, and do our appointed work patiently, bravely, loyally, till He brings the end. They tell us that not work only, but heroic fighting, also, is a worship accepted at His seat. They bid us be thankf