At the close of Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he spoke these prophetic words, that ring as portentously today as they did in March 1861, before the Civil War:
“…from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Surely my great-grandfather must have heard those better angels calling him to sacrifice everything for the cause of Union in the nation he loved.