![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/254\/2014\/07\/lincoln2.jpg\" "\\"Lincoln's")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Civil War split the Southern side of my family.<\/p>\n
My great-great grandfather was from the South, but fought on the side of the North. This sheared him from his family, his people, his past.<\/p>\n
It, in a round-about way, is why I am an Okie today.<\/p>\n
My family has others who fought in that war, Southerners who fought for the North. My grandfather\u2019s father was a drummer boy. My family tends to have children late, which is why the generations are so short. That drummer boy great grandfather lived to be 101.<\/p>\n
My husband\u2019s family was also deep in it. They saluted the Stars and Bars. We sometimes joke that it took over 100 years for the two of us to marry across that divide.<\/p>\n
America has seen worse than the problems she faces today.<\/p>\n
Lincoln, whatever else he did, saved the Union. I do not think anyone else would have stood in that breach and doggedly kept on. If he had not done this, America would never have become the great power she is and the history of the entire world would be vastly different.<\/p>\n
Without a strong America to lend-lease arms to the Soviets and Brits, and then to join the fight, would Hitler have won? Our entry in WWI was certainly a turning point, as well.<\/p>\n
What about the peace that followed? What would have become of a world without the Marshall Plan, the rebuilding of Japan and America\u2019s stalwart stand against Communism across the decades?<\/p>\n
Lincoln saved the Union, and changed world history.<\/p>\n
His great short speech at Gettysburg captured the tragedy of the Civil War in a few words.<\/p>\n