Mike,
Jim said "other wars" and he didn't put a limit on it, but I kept it an American War and an American occupation. My point being that Reconstruction was NOT a generous act, not generous as we have treated foreign nations. The U.S. worst occupation was the Philippine-American War, and the American Civil War, was probably second on the list. It has left deep wounds with many Southerners.

The point in all of this was the original question on whether ex-Union officers made the transformation from war to reunion easier. I think the possibility of even an easier or faster reunion may have occurred with other men as president. The ex-Union officers that did become president, on the whole, extended a policy of occupation and non-reunification. The damage of which lasted well into the 20th century.
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David,

Perhaps these Union officers in their administrative “wisdom” felt that the South wasn’t quite ready. It’s a possibility, anyway. Maybe Sherman should've been president. I understand that his policies, once the fighting was over, were extremely liberal and conciliatory toward the South.

You know the song by Maj. Innes Randolph, CSA. Would you say that he was eager to rehabilitate? What kind of generous act would have mollified him—the suicide of every last Union soldier?

Yes, I would concur that the damage extended many years past the actual events. I recall a former poster, Cump Turchin, talking about the internecine difficulties in the Cumberlands well into the late 1890s! As I remember, his pastor ancestor, name of Morrow, told the men on his dark front porch that, it was time to just let it go! Maybe someone remembers the thread of that conversation.

The Reconstruction may not have been a generous act, and I’ll give you that. But will you not agree that, due to the basic Christian or western values of the combatants, it was nowhere near as bloody as other wars of the last century and even now! That’s not to excuse its excesses, but to put it in perspective.

I am coming to understand how tough things were for the South after its defeat, but in most wars the defeated foes—even today--don’t get a marching salute from their foes, but a head-over-heels tumble into an open pit.

I know that’s little comfort. Actually, it’s none. But will you at least admit that it would’ve been a whole lot worse with some of the other armies around the world?

Not to diminish it in any way, but this whole argument strikes me a little like complaining to a stage 4 cancer patient about what a nasty case of walking pneumonia you've got.