ABSTRACT

In a fully democratic nation, as the United States of America eventually became, the Army of Northern Virginia would never have existed. It was created to defend a breakaway part of the United States, the slaveholding Southern states, most of whose citizens had decided to leave the nation and form their own. For years the populations of the geographic regions of the country had grown ever more different. Indeed, they had started differently. Colonists in the North settled to do good, while those in the South came to do well. That is, Northern settlers came to create good lives for themselves and a good society for all, often basing this society on religious principles such as those of the Puritans of Massachusetts and the Quakers of Pennsylvania. For the most part, Southern settlers came to make as much money as quickly and as easily as possible, and leave, unconcerned with anybody but themselves. Northern crops were foodstuffs such as wheat and rye, while Southern crops were tobacco and cotton; and though the latter were easier to grow and more profitable to sell, they were nonetheless labor-intensive.