George Templeton Strong

"If disunion become an established fact, we have one consolation. The self-amputated members were diseased beyond immediate cure, and their virus will infect our system no longer."

"All the indications are that this treasonable inflammation—secessionitis—keeps on making steady progress week by week."

"The bird of our country is a debilitated chicken, disguised in eagle feathers. We have never been a nation; we are only an aggregate of communities, ready to fall apart at the first serious shock and without a centre of vigorous national life to keep us together."

"Today will be known as . We are utterly and disgracefully routed, beaten, whipped by secessionists."

"Poor old 1861 just going. It has been a gloomy year of trouble and disaster. I should be glad of its departure, were it not that 1862 is likely to be no better. But we must take what is coming. Only through much tribulation can a young people attain healthy, vigorous national life. The results of many years spent in selfish devotion to prosperous, easy money-making must be purged out of our system before we are well, and a drastic dose of European war may be the prescription Providence is going to administer."