I had two great grandfathers in that war. One died at Vicksburg of diarrhea. The other was from S.E. Missouri which was largely sympathetic to the south. He joined the federal army and was soon captured when he returned home on leave. He was in a stockade in Iuka, MS where his brother from the rebel army would kill squirrels with a slingshot and pass them to the fence to him. As a matter of survival, he went into the southern army. He deserted before the battle of Corinth, MS. His sergeant wrote, "Gone to the yanks, is and always has been one. He finished up in the U.S. Cavalry in S.W. MO. He developed what was then called piles and bled to death at a relatively young age. His widow drew his pension until 1910.

Yes, the cause was just, but I don't know what to call the death of 600,000 Americans as anything more than a vast waste. Wasted for a cause, but wasted nonetheless.

Don S.

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