Conclusion
Conclusion
Was the American Civil War a Just War?
Did the Union succeed in waging a truly just war against the Confederacy? Does a historian really have any business answering such a question, or is it best left to ethicists, philosophers, and theologians? I have not tried in this book to pronounce some kind of final verdict on the justice and morality of the actions of Civil War Americans. But neither do I think historians should quickly dismiss the question, “Was the American Civil War a just war?” If nothing else, the question beckons serious consideration of the nature of the war as a military conflict—why the fighting took on the distinct character that it did. It is a question that ultimately confronts historians with the challenge of untangling one of the Civil War’s great paradoxes: Why did the war possess a peculiar mixture of destructiveness and restraint? How could the same war unleash the costliest carnage in American history and yet also inspire earnest, innovative efforts to define just conduct in war and restrain the conflict’s devastation?...
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