Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson

by S.C. Gwynne

But the irony here—and it was grand and tragic irony—was that Lee’s counteroffensive actually marked the end of that brief, fragile period when the Union could still be preserved without making slavery the war’s central issue—without, in other words, destroying the South. From the first days of the war, the stated goals of Lincoln and Congress had been to quell the rebellion and restore the Union. Congress had been quite explicit about this; the previous summer it had passed a resolution specifically disavowing any intent to end the institution of slavery. For a time this remained the essential position of moderate and conservative (i.e., nonradical) Republicans in the North, as well as both “war” and “peace” Democrats, neither of whom believed that freeing Southern slaves was worth spilling Union blood. Lincoln appeased the radicals in his own party and pursued his policy of fighting a war for limited ends.