by Michael T. Heath

Created on: August 17, 2011   Last Updated: August 19, 2011

VOICES OF 620,000 MEN

History is an elusive quarry, skittering away from easy scrutiny at times; holding still so we may see and understand it at others. To gain a fuller picture is to constantly read from new sources - uncovering things here and there which, taken separately, don't seem to amount to much, yet collectively can transform our perception into a broader wisdom. Not one of us can speak unequivocally for the estimated 620,000 dead from America's greatest conflict - our Civil War - but those who love history can try to bring alive the motivations, public sentiments and difficult lives which brave soldiers, citizens and slaves of the time exampled for us. There are lessons from this era the long-dead would not appreciate us forgetting.

Hostilities considered the start of the War Between the States began April 12, 1861 when the recently-formed Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina and more or less ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. However, many lives were lost in the years preceding as pro-slavery forces fought abolitionists from the fields of 'Bleeding Kansas' to the very floor of Congress in Washington, DC. From the time of the Constitutional Convention until the presidential election in 1960, men debated - often violently - the legal, biblical and ethical grounds justifying slavery or reasons it should be abolished. When 11 Southern states seceded after the election of Lincoln, their argument concluded that slavery was a 'States rights' issue - allowed under the Constitution to be determined by each state individually. 20 Northern states had done just that: abolishing slavery throughout their lands as unjust and unconstitutional. These states believed that Jefferson's words "All Men Are Created Equal" applied to the Black man as well as the White. Southern states decided to keep the institution of slavery alive because of the vast economic and political benefits it yielded. Slaves worked for free, built, maintained and cleared land as their masters saw fit and even reproduced new slaves (albeit with some genetic contributions from Whites) as easily as breeding animals for the farm. And although they had no vote, the law allowed them to be counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of representation in Washington.

Some took more offense than others at this inhuman treatment of their fellow man. John Brown was a failure at almost everything he tried his hand at - farming, raising a family, small business

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