Brian Steel Wills Quotes & Sayings

Threats of retaliation had existed from early in the war. Historian Lonnie Speer notes that the Civil War devolved rapidly: "Within months of its beginning this conflict was anything but 'civil' and conducted by anyone but 'gentlemen.'" Regarding this "war of vengeance," he maintains, "There is ample documentation to suggest that both sides quite commonly practiced retaliatory measures against each other for real or imagined wrongs. — Brian Steel Wills