The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-06-30
General John P. Hickman

In statement published in TIL
Tennessean of June 9th, Genera
John P. Hickman, who commando
the Confederate division from thi
city at the Richmond reunion, say
that he and his division did not vot
for the resolution declaring Abra
ham Lincoln to have been re
sponsibe for the Civil War, and tina
their sentiment opposed it because O
its tendency to stir the old member,
of that conflict. He states, however
that he does not subscribe to the doc
trine that Lincoln was any grear
friend of the South.
He cites the fact that Sheridan's
raid and Shermans march to the
sea were approved by proclamation
from President Lincoln, and that
both of these forays were barbarous.
General Hickman is unquestionably
correct in his description of Sher-
idan's raid and Sherman's destructive
march. Each of them was the exploit
of a vandal Each of them is a blot
on the military annals of the repub-
lie, and no man who loves his country
could ever forget or condone such
methods of warfare against his peo-
pie, it matters not who may have
been responsible or who may have ap-
proved.
During nearly the whole time that
Lincoln was President, theYe was
warfare between the sections. 1t
would have been impossible for him
to have conducted his side of that
war, and at the same time to have
mitigated the horrors of reconstruc-
ton in the South had he lived, and
that he harbored no resentment
against the South, except as an armed
enemy of the Union, is we'll founded
belief among the people of the South,
including many soldiers of the Con-
federacy.
Of course, neither Lincoln nor JEFF
ferson Davis was responsible for the
Civil War. When that war began,
each of them was at the head of a
movement that neither of them could
have stopped, or could even have con-
trolled, except to very limited ex-
tent. If either had attempted to
have stopped the forces behind him,
he would simply have been replaced
by another man. No one or two men
brought on that war, nor could any
one or two men have prevented it.
But if General Hickman and his
Tennessee comrades doubt the innate
friendship of Lincoln to the South, it
is all the more to their credit that
they should not have approved the
Richmond resolution. They have
based their opposition to this resolu-
tion on higher and wiser foundations
than their personal opinions of Lin
coin. They are men who have not |
only fought the battles of the Civil |
War, but they have fought a patient
and courageous battle for the re-
Of their ruined country.
and for the final cementing of the
bonds of union that shall be devoid
of sectionalism. They lost the first
battle gloriously, but by winning the
second they have plucked victory
from the ashes of defeat.
For fifty years these soldiers of the
Lost Cause have been the unques-
toned leaders of the South. They
have builded wisely and durably.
Though the weight of years and the
thinning of their ranks has reduced
heir active leadership, their influence
S yet the most potent single influence
n the South, and it viii surely sur
rive them. And it is only another
mark of the wisdom and patriotism
If these Confederate soldiers from
Tennessee that they have been able
o look beyond the present purpose of {
he Richmond resolution to its wider
nd more doubtful effect. 1t cannot I
tier verdict of history, though it can
an the slumbering embers of old re- c
antments. Whatever may have been L
Re personal feeling of Lincoln to-