During and after the Civil War, there were many stories about divided families where one brother joined the Union Army and the other brother joined the Confederates. Maybe the highly honorable Union guy shoots and kills his highly honorable brother, a tragedy. The family must reunite. The nation must be made whole again and so on.
Family stories often have a mundane purpose.
The divided families story is true enough. It happened, but it happened to White families, not families of color. Left out of the story is Gen. Grant’s observation that the Confederates had fought well but that no one had ever fought for a worse cause.
That remained true until the 20th century.
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