Secession cost the lives of 549,543 Americans. These are the dead who were counted, but it is known that the lists, especially on the Confederate side, are not complete. The actual price of this particular political error was greater, perhaps much greater. Yet as late as the year 1902, thirty-seven years after the fighting ended, one who had borne a creditable part in it was capable of saying, after a new examination of the records, "Everybody, in short, was right; no one wrong." We are invited to believe that 549,543 men died as a result of everybody's being right. If this is the result of righteousness, we can only wish that our forefathers had been rather more villainous. - Foreword.

Foreword -- The event -- The South and the law -- The North and the prophets -- Sermons and soda-water.