"John Brown, John Brown...very important person in history. Important, though, for only one episode. Failure in everything in life, except he becomes the single most-important factor, in my opinion, in bringing on the War. The militia system in the South, which had been a joke before this, before then, becomes a viable instrument, as the Southern militias begin to take a true form and the South begins to worry about Northerners agitating the Blacks to murder them in their beds."
January 1, 1970