What causes a civil war, whether it is within a nation or within a family or organization? This question has long intrigued me, because my study of the American Civil War, whose 150th anniversary approaches gave me a window into how the other (and thankfully less bloody) civil wars I have seen in my lifetime may be tackled as a historian and participant. It is the purpose of this thought piece to examine what the American Civil War tells us about how civil wars are caused, and then look at how they may be vanquished without leading to permanent bitterness. Let us begin.

Only a fool seeks a civil war. In the 1850’s, such fools were found in abundance (though not a majority) in the South of the United States. Knowing that demographics would soon render their region a permanent minority, and unwilling to accept the loss of political power to a region whose intentions they mistrusted and whose actions threatened the immoral base of their power and wealth (in plantation slavery) they sought to rebel from their legitimate government when no wrongs had been committed, simply because their power had been lost, in their minds irretrievably. So, fanning the flames of fear and sectional resentment, and by capitalizing on the refusal of some southern states (like Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) to raise troops to coerce the other rebellious states back into the Union, these unscrupulous scoundrels and traitors led the United States into its most deadly and destructive war to date. These people destroyed their wealth and wrecked their beloved land all because they refused to accept an end to their unjustly wielded power and domination over the United States as a whole.

Sadly, I have seen such situations repeat themselves in my own life. For any rebellion to take hold and lead to a civil war, a few factors must be present. Most importantly, there must be two mutually irreconcilable factions with recognized leadership whose lengthy bickering and disputes and power struggles must eliminate the ground for an acceptable compromise that can be agreed to on both sides. The more irreconcilable the worldviews at stake, and the more common history is shared by both sides, the bloodier and nastier the conflict will be. If a group of people has expectations of holding political power that are frustrated (seemingly permanently), and whose pride of position overwhelms their good sense and desire to work together with others, then a civil war is very likely, so long as they have enough supporters to feed their egos and nod in agreement with their treasonous rants.

As a child, I imagined myself as a hero of the bluecoats, pointing a sword at a host of mangy butternut hordes and leading the Union to victory in the manner of heroes of mine like George Thomas, the rock of Chickamuga, who rejected the folly of his native Virginia to lead Union troops to victory in the Western Theater, in places both obscure (like Logan’s Crossroads) and famous (like Nashville), or William Tecumseh Sherman, or Philip Sheridan, or George Meade, a snapping turtle of a Pennsylvanian like myself. Many of these men (especially Thomas, Sheridan, and Sherman) pursued victory diligently, not hesitating to destroy the means of production by which a rebellious region sought to continue warfare against its legitimate government. I have long enjoyed visiting battlefields and fortifications, examining terrain to see where defensive lines could be built, or where an attack could surprise and/or annihilate a hostile enemy force.

I am not, by nature, a particularly warlike person. I dislike violence in my normal day-to-day activities, nor am I particularly militaristic. However, knowing that the same fire that burned inside the blue-coated heroes of my youth to defend the authority of a legitimate government against the conspiracies of rebels burned inside me, I long wondered if the chance to be as brave against evil would come to me as came to those renowned men of old. Some of these men, like Sherman, had lived a long time in the South, been friends with many future enemies, and yet would prosecute a righteous war against the satanic spirit of rebellion with vigor, earning the lasting hatred of their defeated and vanquished foes. Like Sherman, I will fight my enemies to my (or their) dying breath, but as soon as they surrender and repent of their sins I will give them the shirt off my back and seek reconciliation with them fully and quickly. But so long as they raise up arms against me and the authority I defend, I will seek to destroy them.

Abraham Lincoln himself was a man of similar feelings. He prosecuted the war effort by every means available to him (It must be noted, for those that criticize Lincoln unfairly for his efforts, calling him a socialist and a despot, that the South did everything that he did and used even more despotic and socialistic means to prosecute their war effort–witness the excellent research in “Look Away” if you are not aware of this fact.) He was a man who suffered great abuse at the hands of his enemies, being assassinated by a crazed traitor for his publicly expressed desire to ensure that some blacks would vote in the reconstruction South. Yet he was accused on his own side for weakness because of his own noble and sincere desire for a moderate and gentle reconstruction that would bind up the nation’s wounds with malice towards none and with charity towards all.

Likewise, I would agree in the case of all of the civil wars I have read about and seen and participated in that the ultimate desire is not to put one’s feet on the necks of one’s defeated enemies, nor to glory unrighteously in victory by ugly retribution. So long as there is to be war, I am for any means to prosecute that war successfully, but once the war is won, I am for every gentleness to be provided to the survivors, and every generosity to be provided to build up the destroyed infrastructure of the defeated region, to ensure their hope for a better future as restored and reconciled brethren. One does not look merely for victory, but also for what happens afterwards, for the rebuilding of the ruins, for the comforting of the widows and orphans left fatherless by warfare’s grim appetite. When the shooting stops, one has to go back to being friends and brothers working once again towards a common and glorious future. Not everyone can do that; I hope, like my heroes of blue, we can rise to such nobility ourselves, through the help of our Eternal Father. With His aid, we cannot fail, and without it, we cannot hope to succeed.