Yet there is a dignity in the human spirit which can become most clearly visible in the moment of defeat and disaster.

A certain combination of incompetence and indifference can cause almost as much suffering as the most acute malevolence.

Early youth is a baffling time

Like most Rebel soldiers, Sam Watkins owned no slaves.

Progress is the sum of small victories won by individual human beings.

Here was the greatest and most moving chapter in American history, a blending of meanness and greatness, an ending and a beginning. It came out of what men were, but it did not go as men had planned.

Men see things late, and it may be that at times an evil fate drives them on.