Subject:
The Furnace of Civil War ??? 1861?1865 My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1862 21 When President Lincoln issued his call to the statesfor seventy-five thousand militiamen on April 15, 1861, he envisioned them serving for only ninety days. Reaffirming his limited war aims, he declared that he had ?no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.? With a swift flourish of federal force, he hoped to show the folly of secession and rapidly return the rebellious states to the Union. But the war was to be neither brief nor limited. When the guns fell silent four years later, hundreds of thousands
