How the Union avenged Fort Sumter

This primary document, published about halfway through Lincoln’s war against the Southern people, was written for a Northern audience and speaks of the horrible loss of blood and treasure as well as the negative transforming power of invasion and war:

“One hundred and fifty thousand more of our men have died of disease and wounds, than of theirs… We have spent almost two thousand million more of money than they have spent. We have made two hundred thousand of our women widows. We have made one million of our children fatherless. We have destroyed the Constitution of our country. We have brought the ferocious savagery of war into every corner of society. We have demoralized our pulpits, so that our very religion is a source of immorality and blood…. There is a corpse in every family. The angel of death sits in every door. The devil has removed from Tartarus to Washington. We pretend that we are punishing the rebels, but they are punishing us. We pretend that we are restoring the Union, but we are destroying it… Selling our souls to the devil and taking Lincoln & Co.’s promise to pay. We have it in greenbacks and blood. This is the way we are “revenging Sumpter [sic].”

-The Old Guard Volume 0001 Issue 5 (May 1863) How We Are Revenging Sumpter [pp.115-116
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