"Send your gun to the blacksmith"
Editorials show why South and North fought

There are many arguments today about why the Civil War was fought. Here are two newspaper editorials written during that era that shed some light on the subject. (Yes, these would be known as primary sources.)
Here is part of an editorial written from a Confederate point of view (click on it to enlarge it). It was published in April 1861 in the Christian Advocate, the newspaper of the Southern Methodist Publishing House. In its time, the Advocate was an extremely important publication. As you can tell from reading it, the newspaper tells its readers to get ready to fight; tells them that the Northern cause it not a noble one; and hints that the South will win the war.

By the way: The author of this editorial was Advocate editor Holland McTyeire. McTyeire survived the war, became a Methodist bishop, and co-founded Vanderbilt University. For more on that, click here and scroll down to the part about Vanderbilt.

Here is an editorial from the Union point of view. It was published in Harper's Weekly in January 1863. The author of this editorial (whose identity is unclear) explains that if the Confederacy is allowed to secede, war between the new Confederate States and the United States would take place anyway. Then, the article claims, other parts of the United States would eventually break off, and the former United States would end up as several small, warring nations.
What is most interesting about this Harper's editorial is that it doesn't cite the elimination of slavery as the main reason for the war -- even though the editorial was written a week after the Emancipation Proclamation. In the eyes of this editorial writer, Union was the cause -- not abolition.
A Confederate cemetery at the site of a former prisoner of war camp in Ohio.
So do these editorials tell us all we need to know about the Union and Confederate points of view? OF COURSE NOT! These are only TWO opinions. There were newspapers all over the country and they all had different points of view. And as for the soldiers, they all had their own reasons for fighting. So whatever you decide to believe about the cause of the war, don't let ANYONE tell you it was simple.

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