Lincoln vs. Davis Quotes

“Strong’s despondency had only increased when news of yet another Union reverse had come via the telegraph: a battle in which brave General Nathaniel Lyon had been killed at Wilson’s Creek, in southwest Missouri. “We are not fighting in earnest, not even yet,” Strong lamented. “Our sluggish, good-natured, pachydermatous Northern people requires a deal of kicking to heat its blood. Not a traitor is hanged after four months of rampant belligerent rebellion. We must change all this. The Southern oligarchy is making war with hysterical, unscrupulous energy, like France in her unblessed First Revolution. We have got to turn ourselves up to the same pitch, hang rebels, arm their n****rs, burn their towns,” Strong expostulated in his diary on August 15, 1861, “expel all sympathizers with treason that infest our own borders”—such as in Missouri.10”
― Nigel Hamilton, Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents