Ardent opponents of secession, like Alexander H. Stephens,
threw in their lot with the new Confederacy; States like Virginia,
which hesitated to disrupt a Union with which they had had so much to do,
were as enthusiastic as the more ardent Southern States;
old men vied with young men in their military ardor.
Scotch-Irish opponents of slavery marched side by side with the Cavaliers,
to whom slavery was the very corner-stone of a feudal aristocracy.
The fact is, the whole South was animated by a passion for war.
To young men like Lanier the Southern cause was one of liberty,
of resistance to despotism and fanaticism, of the protection of homes.
He who would understand their point of view must read such war lyrics as
"Maryland, My Maryland" and Timrod's "Ethnogenesis", or enter sympathetically
into the lives of that youthful band of Confederate soldiers all of whom
were afterwards to become distinguished in the field of letters, --
Timrod, Hayne, Cable, Maurice Thompson, and Lanier.
It was not given to many men on either side to divine
the true issues of the war. Lanier afterwards rejoiced
in the overthrow of slavery, and knew that it was the belief
in the soundness and greatness of the American Union
among the millions of the North and of the great Northwest
which really conquered the South. "As soon as we invaded the North," he said,
"and arrayed this sentiment against us, our swift destruction followed."
In a note-book of 1867 he pointed out with touches of humor
the folly of many of the ideas formerly held by himself and other Southerners.
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