"The leaders of the radical masses of the North have indicted such countless and cruel wrongs on the Southern people as to forbid any hope of disposition or ability to forgive their victims; and the land will have no rest until the last of these persecutors has passed into oblivion"

What about the terror inflicted on the people of East Tennessee by the Confederate officials during the war. Men, women, children driven off their land to internment camps in Union occupied areas? People imprisoned for speaking against secession. How about some hyperbole about the cruel and countless wrongs done to them. The plight of blacks in the South has plenty of defenders to speak for their real and imagine injustices. Quite frankly I don't concern myself with that one way or another. Reconstruction probably did more to perpetuate animosity between sections of the country than the war itself. The fact remains though... Any and every Civil War of that magnitude up until that time had the leaders heads hanging from the cities walls and wholesale executions. That didn't even come close to happening here. Within a small amount of time the same families that ran things in the South and North were back to running them again. Met the old boss, same as the new boss.