David,

Getting back to the original question of whether or not the majority of Union presidents being former Union generals or officers made a difference, I guess I've always wanted to believe that men who had passed through combat and lived an army life were imbued with some sort of inherent virtue. This may be wishful or romanticized thinking, but perhaps, because I grew up in a military family, I always have held the military in high esteem, especially those who had experience combat and war.

I believe there is something tempering and maturing about "seeing the Elephant" that may have changed these men for the better. I too look to the Reconstruction period as a dark time in the South. I knew as a child, that even in the sixties, the vestiges of it still remained in the sharecroppers shacks, the uneducated blacks, the non-industrialized and poor agricultural based communities. I am not saying Reconstruction wasn't a bad time. I'm saying it could have been a lot worse and we Southerners should be able to morn the tragedy of Reconstruction, yet be thankful that our conqueror was not more vengeful.

I also do not believe the post-war Northern presidents were tyrants. They may have been incompetent or corrupt in a few cases, but not tyrannical.

Jim