The Civil War isn't "tragic"
The Civil War Isn't Tragic - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
Some words from Private Thomas Strother of the USCT, writing the Christian Recorder, the 19th century paper published by the African Methodist Episcopal Church:
To suppose that slavery, the accursed thing, could be abolished peacefully and laid aside innocently, after having plundered cradles, separated husbands and wives, parents and children; and after having starved to death, worked to death, whipped to death, run to death, burned to death, lied to death, kicked and cuffed to death, and grieved to death; and, worst of all, after having made prostitutes of a majority of the best women of a whole nation of people...would be the greatest ignorance under the sun.
