Without a doubt the most troubling time in the history of the United Sates was the Civil War era. Devastated by the ruins of war, the country was drained emotionally and spiritually. The hostility had developed not only between regions of the country, but it spilled over into families and institutions. At given moments of the war, people questioned whether they would ever be able to recover from the debacle that had been wrought upon the nation. The future was in grave doubt. People lost their perspective on all time, because the period was so traumatic. They found it impossible to imagine the future or any type of recovery. After Gettysburg, General Meade wrote that he had lived thirty years in the last ten days. The young Henry Adams, on a mission in London with his father, wrote that pe…