Video: 'Ken.Burns.The.Civil.War.1of9.The.Cause' (Strong's diary entry at 1:31:07)

(Tuesday, December 31, 1861; during the American Civil War) — On this last day of 1861, during the first year of the American Civil War, George Templeton Strong, lawyer, a founder of the U.S. Sanitary Commission and accomplished diarist, wrote: “Poor old 1861…. 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,” he continued. “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.”