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Conclusion War had not been the short-lived, adventurous, and triumphant experience almost everyone in Spartanburg had expected—not for the soldier in the field, and not for the people at home. Instead, it had necessitated unexpected sacrifice and caused social turmoil—it had proven hard and unforgiving. So it was for the Confederate and the border states, and so it was for the people of Spartanburg. Geographically removed from the terrors of the battlefields, the people of Spartanburg had experienced the war in their own ways. They had experienced the hardship of high taxes and the scarcity of food, the worry of having sons, husbands , and friends subject to the maiming and death of war, the tension of political bickering and bitter disagreements among leaders and neighbors, the fear of possible depredations from returning soldiers and deserters, and for many, the depression of lost hope and the longing for peace followed by the finality of the end of nationhood. For Spartanburg’s slaves, the war had meant sharing much or even more of the above as well as enduring the uncertainty between continued slavery or obtaining freedom. The end of the war had seemed to fulfill the hopes of Spartanburg’s slaves, but for the white people who had initially been caught up in the romance and excitement of rebellion and independence, it meant the bitterness of defeat. In the end the self-proclaimed greatest society the world had ever known had for the most part ceased to be. Insofar as the Southern way of life had depended on slavery, whether one had owned slaves or had aspired to doing so, that way of life was forever destroyed. As the subsequent history of the white people of the Southern region, including the residents of Spartanburg, would show, the defeat of the battlefield did not mean that they had changed their minds in any fundamental ways. As John Berkly Grimball wrote, they had been “conquered,” but as their subsequent actions would attest, they had not been reconstructed. 100 Conclusion Ironically, the “fifth column” the Spartan had so often feared in its pages during the war became, at war’s end, the posture of many white Spartanburg residents.1 The fighting war was over, but the cultural battle would continue over one hundred more years, and may yet not be finished. Perhaps, for all the residents of Spartanburg whose lives were touched by war, it is fitting to leave the last word to two of the Union generals who ultimately defeated them. Ulysses S. Grant wrote of those Southern fighting men: “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause.”2 William Tecumseh Sherman wrote: “we are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies.”3 In both instances the words of these two magnanimous and victorious warriors aptly apply to the wartime experiences of the inhabitants of Spartanburg District. ...

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