Civil War Times - 1861 1865 #263315

In an address to the New England Society of New York, Oliver Wendell Holmes said: The story of the Pilgrims may be told for a thousand anniversaries and the next year it will be fresh again. So it is with the story of the Civil, War. Notwithstanding the passing years, it retains all its interest, especially for those who bore arms on either side. The Surviving veterans never tire of telling the story or of hearing it told, and its fascination is such as to lend a charm to even the most unpretentious narrative of the conflict in which they took part. Macaulay said that he intended to write a history of England that would make the lady in her drawing room lay down the latest novel and take up his book, and he accomplished his purpose. The time has not yet come, nor has the historian appeared, for writing a history of the Civil War. No man now living can write it with the impartiality that should characterize the historian, and no historian could now write such a history without rekindling the embers of passion and prejudice still smoldering beneath the ashes of the conflict that once glowed with such fierce heat.